Mobile Family Interaction: How to use mobile technology to bring trust, safety and wellbeing into families

Abstract
Jofish Kaye Nokia Corporation 955 Pagemill Road Palo Alto, CA 940304, USA jofish.kaye@nokia.com Matti Nelimarkka * Helsinki Institute for Information PO Box 19215 00076 Aalto, Finland matti.nelimarkka@hiit.fi * Corresponding author Riitta Kauppinen Save the Children Finland PO Box 95 00601 Helsinki, Finland
riitta.kauppinen@pelastakaalapset.fi

Sini Vartiainen Nokia Corporation PO Box 226 00045 Nokia Group, Finland sini.vartiainen@nokia.com Pekka Isosomppi Nokia Corporation 00045 Nokia Group, Finland pekka.isosomppi@nokia.com

Mobile devices have become an important part of adult life, where they are now used for media consumption and creation instead of traditional telephony function only. The same trend is visible in teens and children, both of whom are using mobile devices increasingly. Naturally the extensive use of technology easily brings up new threats, especially as mobile devices are mobile, and they cannot be tied to fixed locations that could be monitored. Nevertheless, the technology may also be beneficial for communication and family life when used smartly. These positive interaction possibilities need to be highlighted, as they provide new space for innovation. Developing our understanding further in this matter requires a multidisciplinary approach. Hence we ask for contributions from several fields, such as ethnography, education and design studies. This way we can enhance dialogue and co-create new solutions together.

Technology HIIT, Aalto University PO Box 226

Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). MobileHCI 2011, Aug 30Sept 2, 2011, Stockholm, Sweden. ACM 978-1-4503-0541-9/11/08-09.

Keywords
Family communications, children, children use of technology

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ACM Classification Keywords

H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces, K.4.2 Social issues, K.4.1 Public policy issues

be used for monitoring and invading childrens lives [13]. In this workshop we wish to understand how the changing technology landscape has affected childhood and family life. Especially, our interest is how peersupport mechanisms, supporting elements for selfcoping and parental mediation can contribute to general wellbeing of children in the digital era. Also, we focus on solutions that can be used to increase family interaction, and the feeling of safety and trust in the family. The cases where technology is empowering growth, wellbeing and participation in family life are also very important and hopefully studied further.

Previous research and our motivation

This workshop is organized as recent studies [e.g. 10, 5, 6] have shown that mobile devices have grown into important communication tools for children and teens. The trend is obviously similar to generic developments in the mobile device landscape, i.e. in addition to traditional mobile telephone usage, the devices are increasingly used to browse the Internet, listen to music, and take photographs. In other words, children and teens use mobile devices also for media consumption and creation, not just traditional telephony. Due to mobility, there has been a shift in technology use, which has traditionally been tied into more controlled environments, such as schools or the home with parents. Naturally, the evolution in technology has an impact on trust, safety and the wellbeing of the family, both positive and negative. Positive mechanisms may include special software allowing family to communicate more efficiently, like Whereabouts Clock (prototype) [4], Fambit [7], Genevine [9]. The use of information and communication technology may also be extended to new forms of family structures, such as distance parenting and extended families [2,3,7]. Naturally, the increase of technology in households requires parenting, supervision and supporting, usually from parents to children [e.g. 1, 11], but also from children to parents [12]. Technology is also affecting the sociological structures in the family. For example, due to mobile phones parents may be more accepting of staying out, but at the same time, the phones may

Focus and intention

As discussed above, the effects of digitization are multidisciplinary and wide-ranging. In this workshop, we focus on three different streams that together cover a good subset needed to understand the role of mobile phones in families.

Empirical research in childrens mobile phone usage and the usage of mobile technology for family communication. Also, empirical analysis on threats and opportunities in this area are welcome. Case studies on improving media literacy skills of both children and parents using different kinds of tools and campaigns; such as games, printed materials etc. The case studies should include elements that examine how the media literacy skills were improved.

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Presentations on innovative solutions that support family life and child empowerment using mobile technology and Web-based systems, preferably with analysis of the effects of using the system.

tackle potential threats related to mobile communication but also to understand further the benefits of mobile devices in family life. These concrete solutions should be created using prototyping techniques, allowing us to examine them further. Ideally the work on the best prototypes will continue after the workshop and these prototypes will be evaluated in user tests. Naturally, the results shall be shared back to scientific community and the general public.

The intention is that, within this workshop, several types of competences (e.g. ethnography, education, prototyping) of the workshop team are able not only to present the current state and highlight issues demanding more research, but also to develop concrete suggestions, i.e. prototypes, that demonstrate the wished results.

Citations

[1] Ames M, Go J., Kaye J. J. and Spasojevic M.

To bring more interaction to the workshop, instead of just presentations we assume a collaborative effort in designing and prototyping in order to increase the interaction of the workshop. We also aim to engage local secondary school pupils (hgstadiet) and families to participate in the co-creation session. By engaging children more, we might get additional insight in the sessions and empower the children to use ICT more for their benefit -.

Understanding technology choices and values through social class. Proc. CSCW 2011 (forthcoming)

[2] Ballagas R., Raffle H., Go J., Revelle G., Kaye J., Ames M., Horii H., Mori K., and Spasojevic M. Story time for the 21st century. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 9:2836, 2010. [3] Ballagas R., Kaye J., Ames M., Go J., and Raffle H. Family communication: Phone conversations with children. In Proc. Interaction Design for Children. ACM, 2009. [4] Brown, B. A. T., Taylor, A. S., Izadi, S., Sellen, A., Kaye, J. 'J.' and Eardley, E. Locating Family Values: A Field Trial of the Whereabouts Clock. Proc. Ubicomp 2007: 354-371 [5] European Commission (2008). Towards a safer use of the internet for children in the EU a parents perspective [6] European Commission (2007). Safer Internet For Children. Qualitative study in 29 European countries [7] Fambit, http://www.fambit.com/ [8] Follmer S., Raffle H., Go J., Ballagas R., and Ishii
H.. Video play: Playful interactions in video

Goals
As we have suggested above, the workshop should focus on interaction with participants and children. This is achieved by panel-approach in discussion and presentation of the workshop participants work. We also aim to create concrete solutions that improve the family life. These may be technical solutions, such as new services, or social solutions, such as improvement of media literacy skills and mediation. These concrete solutions should help us not only to

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conferencing for long-distance families with young children. In Proc. Interaction Design for Children, 2010.

(eds.) Digital generations. Children, young people and new media. Routledge, 2006. pp. 93-113

[9] Genevine, http://genevine.com/ [10] Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Grzig, A., lafsson, K. (2011). Risks and safety on the internet: The perspective of European children. Full Findings. LSE, London: EU Kids Online.
the Internet at Home: Contrasting the Perspectives of Children and Parents. In Buckingham, D. and Willett, R.

[12] Livingstone, S. and Bober, M. (2004). UK children go online: surveying the experiences of young people and their parents. London School of Economics and Political Science. [13] Williams, S. and Williams, L. (2005). Space
invaders: the negotiation of teenage boundaries through the mobile phone. The Sociological Review 53:2 pp. 314-331

[11] Livingstone, S. and Bober, M. (2006). Regulating

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