Support Social Connectedness through Technology-Mediated Shared Activities

Abstract

Shared activities such as reading or gaming together play an important part in people’s practices, both online and offline, in various social contexts, including connecting with distributed family members, socializing with colleagues after work, or catching up with friends. Especially during technology-mediated communication, shared activities can help improve the quality of connection outcomes and overcome barriers people often face with traditional communication technology. Prior research has explored new technology designs to support shared activities and context in remote communication and connection. Only a few studies have investigated the long-term impact of novel technology design on people’s social connectedness. This dissertation work explores technology design that supports in-person social practices in remote context during shared activities, and studies the long-term effect of the proposed system design on people’s social connections. The three different studies are designed to understand current in-person and online practices with shared activities in building and maintaining social connections, iteratively design communication technology to nurture meaningful relationships during remote intergenerational activities, and evaluate the impact of proposed technology design on people’s social connectedness with a long-term field deployment study. Overall, this dissertation contributes an in-depth understanding of how technology can better support people’s social practices during shared activities and helps inform opportunities for technology to better connect people socially.