hi
um our personal data is deeply related
to our identity
it describes us it reveals insights into
our lives and personalities but it also
shapes us
the systems and structures we build and
use for gathering
storing and interacting with our data
define the way we think about ourselves
the models of ourselves that we create
with this data determine the actions
that we take
so i was curious about this idea of
collecting data from our behaviors in
the situations that we're in
and using it to provide feedback and
behavior modification
that would enable us to fit in better in
those situations
is
so
uh
um so this is one of a series of three
wearables that i made for myself
um another was an anti-david streaming
device that could tell if i was
talking to someone and then vibrate at
the back of the neck to make me pay
attention and the third
was something that would detect how long
it had been since i touched someone and
if it was too long it would start to
kind of fade out the audio so in order
to talk to anyone i had to reach out and
touch them
um and they were all designed around
things i felt like i needed to do better
to fit in
but it was also meant to ask the
question what is fitting in what are
these optimal behaviors that we're
trying to achieve
you know there's been a lot of research
specifically specifically looking at
helping people with autism spectrum
uh disorders to fit in better with those
around them but in creating these
technology
technologies i think we need to keep
asking how do we set these goals
what is this acceptable normal that
we're trying to achieve
so this uh that wearable series was
about me reflecting on what i needed to
do
and having a machine help me get there
but i was interested in this possibility
of letting others provide the feedback
and so this what you're
seeing is a table where four people
could sit around it
and then based on how much they were
enjoying the conversation they each
person had a little foot pedal that they
could kind of move from minus to plus
to get feedback and then as they move
the pedal
it would aggregate all of the responses
and then the tabletop would
dim or brighten accordingly to give the
person that was talking some feedback of
whether they're going the right
direction or not
so we see these kinds of feedback
systems everywhere in social media
via twitter facebook instagram
etc you can share your personal
experiences emotions and opinions
and friends and strangers alike can like
that thing that you said
they can favorite your experience
and if they really approve of your
utterances and other data that you share
they'll start following you and they'll
stop following you when they start to
disapprove
but how does it feel to give this
feedback when you're face to face and
you can see the reaction
does the feedback always encourage
conformity or could it be a tool to
challenge us
and challenge each other and push our
relationships further into more
interesting directions
so i've been really curious lately about
this trend to track all of our personal
data
there are apps to measure our sleep
cycles our brain waves the calories we
consume the cigarettes we smoke the
steps we walk
you get the point and i was curious
about using this biometric data
to quantify and analyze our social
relationships so the project that i'm
working on right now
measures your galvanic skin response and
heart rate and body temperature
as you're hanging out with people and
then
over the span of time it starts to
associate
your emotional and physical reactions
with the people that you're around
so that just like those apps that show
you which activities are burning
calories this one will show you which
friends are stressing you out or making
you excited
and then you it could even um suggest
behaviors you know drop this friend
ignore their calls or invite them to
hang out
um so on one hand this is a dystopian
is this is kind of a view of a dystopian
future where fat we could be fast
approaching
where we're totally unable to manage our
social relationships without the help of
a computer
but what if it turns out that this
really does help
that we're able to form more meaningful
and honest connections and spend time
with those that really make us feel good
and become more aware of the effects
that we have on each other
and then there's the question that when
you're collecting data about your
interactions with other people
do you own that is it yours to share
so rather than just visualizing the
feedback what if we could receive
prompts or alternatives
hey how's it going uh
it's okay um it's okay
you yeah um see i've
been better um you know i know what we
need here
don't suffer through another awkward
date let the conversa cube fast track
your love life
new travel version can go everywhere you
need to be
i like you i like you too
okay i
so again this is part you know dystopian
look at the future but the thing that
was interesting for me about this was
that
in practice this device didn't give you
such kind of cheesy
props like that but it would sort of
look at the audio levels and then try to
give you words that would sort of
disrupt the conversation
and give you an opportunity to take it
in a different direction
and the response that i got was that
people really felt this kind of freedom
suddenly just based on this
hunk of plastic in the middle of their
table with some electronics
so this was about using a machine to
give you some prompts but i was
interested in bringing others into the
process so this was a piece that i did
where for one month i let others on the
internet control my life so it was
basically like a website
that you go to and you could edit
wikipedia style um
so you just go in and type in any lines
or stage directions or actions or
things that you wanted me to do for for
the next day
you could write yourself into the script
you could tell give me actions to do
and then at the end of the day the
script would close and i would perform
exactly what was there
it was mostly like my daily life so this
went on for a month
every day and
i think it was interesting the reactions
that people had a lot of people had fun
with this they could
make me do whatever silly thing they
wanted and see me do it
but others felt sort of this obligation
or guilt because they were my professors
or my friends and they wanted to help
but they
felt uneasy about the amount of control
that they had
and then others felt kind of upset and
angry that i was sharing so much and so
publicly and then implicating them
through their interactions
so you know there was there was this
experience for other people
uh give contributing but it was really
an experience for me and i was
interested in this idea of kind of
breaking down this narrow view of myself
and
pushing me outside the boundaries of
what that normally is
um there's this kind of like freedom
that i felt when this
one actually did this piece and i wanted
others to feel it too
so
um so if it wasn't clear uh you know i
feel like a lot of social media
sometimes kind of shapes and narrows the
ways that we interact and so i was
interested in this idea of creating a
thin layer on top of normal social space
that would let people that wanted to
interact in ways that that they wanted
to
you know asking this question can we
create alternative social spaces
invisible to normal society that allow
us to have their freedom to act out our
personal desires
and can we do this in physical space and
how do you appropriate existing systems
for use in ways that feel empowering and
free
so going back slightly to this idea of
the conversa cube and the script
what if we could really crowdsource our
social relationships and receive
real-time instructions
unbeknownst to those we're interacting
with
so
do
so in this case rather than it being
people i knew these were all anonymous
workers and i wanted to see if these
objective observers might have more
insights than i did
wrapped up in my own headspace and i was
also curious about how does it feel for
for an amazon turk worker going to the
website and expecting to do something
almost like a robot and then being asked
to do something really human
um you know and this is this the future
of google glass
so i think in conclusion opening your
private life
to the crowd to machines to the public
can be really freeing it can deepen your
connections and expand
your understanding of yourself but i
think it's also important to remember
that sharing your personal life
does not involve just you it affects
others you're productive relationships
and interactions with others and
in giving up your own privacy you're
giving up someone else's privacy too
when you put something private out in
public you no longer have full control
of it
others will encounter it and have to
deal with it and it
whether they've decided to or agreed to
or not and you're breaking down this
line between yourself and others which
can be great
but it affects everybody involved for
better or worse
thanks