Ofcom report Media Lives

Reading the most recent Ofcom report on Media Lives which is based on a small number of qualitative interviews with people but carefully selected to be UK representative, it surprised me that the fundamental motives and barriers to acquire media literacy skills have remained largely constant (since the survey started in 2005).

Around social networking sites it reports: "As the use of Facebook matures among our participants, the related privacy issues are becoming more subtle and complex.Users are now more aware and careful about what information they share, and generally more cautious about adding people as friends than they once were. Most commonly, their concerns are about the dangers of certain individuals getting to see sensitive information (e.g. employers, family members), rather than its exposure to the world at large. Increasingly, the Facebook-related dramas recounted by participants and/or their children are an extension of broader personal and/or social issues (e.g. relationship problems, bullying), rather than technology or platform-specific concerns such as internet privacy or viewing of unsuitable content."

Further noticeable are the explosion of downloadable apps and changes in linear TV viewing and radio listening.

I wonder if the idea of the Saturday night family TV show will die...

Read the report here

Paper: Mobile Remote Presence Systems for Older Adults: Acceptance, Benefits, and Concerns

I read this interesting paper by Jenay M. Beer about older adults using a remote robot to allow them to 'tele-communicate' with others in different locations (published in the Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Human-robot interaction - HRI '11) The robot (with screen) was developed by Willow Garage's.
For me the main findings was the question about 'etiquette' on using the remote presence. Do we have an etiquette for using Skype?
Also, this concern must affect groups of all ages not just the older adults, or?

Journal article: Everyday use of computer-mediated communication tools and its evolution over time: An ethnographical study with older people

Just came across this paper in "Interacting with Computers" which I find very interesting since it includes a longitudinal aspect. The paper, based on a ethnographic study with 400 older people in Barcelona, shows that older people are happy to include a range of ICT tools to communicate with their family / friends. The authors describe how the cognitive level will be the greatest challenge for using ICT when older. They also point out the importance of taking notes while learning - this is something that I have come across in my research too.
I also agree with their view that designing tools only for older people is not necessarily effective.
look for article

"You don't need to know it, you just need to know where to find the answers"

A lawyer friend of mine used to say this 20 years ago. He wouldn't remember the law word for word, but had to know in which book, court case or where else he would find references. The BBC reports about memory research and how computers affect the way we store memory. Read the article here
I think my friend's statement is supported with this study. For him the transactive memory were books at the time. So somehow results of the experiments are not surprising news !

HCI and (or versus?) Design

I came across a chapter about the uncomfortable relation between the traditions of HCI and Design. I have not checked if it is actually useful, but it should be worth reading anyway as part of the background to our thinking about function, likeability etc.

K. Kuutti. 2009. HCI and design: uncomfortable  bedfellows? In: Binder, Löwgren & Malmborg (eds.) (Re)searching the Digital Bauhaus. Springer, London, pp. 43-59

Available from http://cc.oulu.fi/~kuutti/Julkaisukansio/Ehn_60_Kuutti.pdf

Kari Kuutti is Professor, University of Oulu, Department of Information Processing Sciences
Linnanmaa,  Finland

BBC4 Radio 4 book of the week

This morning I happen to listen to the last part of the book "The warmth of the heart prevents the body from rusting". It made me looking forward to 'growing old' - a time where expectations are less and you take the world in as it is.

About the author and book:
French psychologist Marie de Hennezel examines western attitudes to ageing and asks if we can transform the way we feel about growing old, making this most feared period one of the best times of our lives.

De Hennezel draws on her experience of working with the dying to argue that one's proximity to death is not to be feared.

Read by Alexandra Mathie.
Abridged by Alison Joseph.

Marie de Hennezel is a respected psychologist and psychotherapist who works with the French government to raise awareness of palliative care. She has written nine books about the end of life, including 'Intimate Death', and is the author of two ministerial reports on caring for those with terminal illnesses.

listen for the next 7 days

"There are no older people, just older bodies"

In the first BRAID workshop (Bridging Research in Ageing and ICT development) was a lively discussion around when one feels 'old'...
Extract:
"Significantly, when asked if he considered himself to be an older person Miguel responded that he did not, prompting Emilio Mordini (CSSC) to close the workshop with a comment which must remain at the forefront of our work: that in reality there are ‘no older people, just older bodies’. "
read workshop summary here

I think this is very interesting because I think there is a point when an older person will say about themselves that they are old. I think it's the mindset of a person.