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Stimulating critical thinking about the self-sustaining network of relations which reinforce smartphone use: a Critical Design study

Ellen, L.T.B. (2019) Stimulating critical thinking about the self-sustaining network of relations which reinforce smartphone use: a Critical Design study.

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Abstract:The design of the smartphone has not changed drastically over the past decade. This project aimed to uncover the structures which maintain the position the smartphone through Participatory Design workshops and stimulate debate about these structures through Critical Design. The PD workshops indicated that the smartphone has become central to most daily activities of the participants, changing how they interact both in the virtual world and the ''real'' world. The two CD artifacts build on and change its aspects, one by making virtual world ``real'' by projecting it around the user, the other by making the implicit behavioural rules explicit by connecting them to the school system. The final reflection combined the results with the theories of Embodied Interaction. It is argued that the user and the smartphone are part of a network of relations, which it is hard to break out off. First, this network is blackboxed, second, many functionalities are delegated to the smartphone, and finally, by stepping out of the network individually a (non)user becomes isolated. Thus, design changes should be supported on a larger scale, which could be stimulated through Critical Design. The project showed a promising method of challenging smartphone use through CD artifacts.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Subject:02 science and culture in general, 08 philosophy, 10 humanities in general, 70 social sciences in general
Programme:Interaction Technology MSc (60030)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/77863
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