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Task: Over a two-day period, do the following: DAY 1 – create a diary of when, why and what you use your mobile device for. Observe how others are using their mobile devices. What are the most common uses and where do you see these behaviors? DAY 2 – Do not use your phone, computer or electronic device for 24 hours. Create a diary documenting and describing the difference in your behavior patterns. How did you do the things you would normally do with your phone? What other alternative behaviors did you develop? What else did you notice about the difference in behavior?

 

DAY I (Friday || 3 March)
  • Phone

Messaging 

When:  ~5mins/irregular intervals

Where: Home

Why: to keep in touch with others (groupmates / friends)

This is probably the main reason why i use my phone for since there were many group projects to be done hence the need to be updated/clarify things/check what we’ve discussed on before asap to get work done. I also use it for texting friends for conversing purposes and to keep in contact since we can’t meet up physically. Its probably because on this day I was busy with doing assignments hence I did not check my phone on a more often basis. I only looked/used it just after I woke up and then in between breaks.

 

Games

Design Home  

When: 15min per morning(when just wake up) || late afternoon(4 PM) || night (before sleeping)

Where: Home

Why: this game releases new design challenges at these intervals so – to keep up with progress anf it doesn’t take too long to play it.

This game requires internet connection and usually if I was at home, I would open it at those timings as mentioned above since there is wifi. However, most of the time I would only play this around evening-ish timing since there was school/work in the day and all.

Pokemon Go

When: once in awhile ( >2 minutes) mostly if my brother announces excitedly there is some new creature if not I don’t really play it at all.

Where: Home / Outside

Why: adding the new creatures into my collection (for fun – bro/sis thing)

 

Social Media – Instagram 

When:  ~2 minute

Where: Home

Why: taking a break or at lost of what to do / see what others are up to

Used to browse through social media including other platforms than the one mentioned above on a often basis in the past but surprisingly in the recent months I don’t use it as much due to little free time/ losing interest. On this day, I didn’t open up any other social media platforms other than Instagram but I didn’t use it for long anyways because i just watch afew friend’s insta-story then turned it off to continue with my work.

 

  • Computer/Laptop

Work 

When: from morning till night

Where: Home

Why: to meet submissions deadline !! D:

This was probably the biggest component where I spent the most amount of time on. In the morning till about noon, I spent most of my time researching the possible ways to do up an interface for my “Narratives for Interaction” module and doing up my own mock-up based on that. In the afternoon till night, I spent it to do the other parts of assignments given in this module – the two readings and project response.

 

Music

When: while doing research/work

Where: Home

Why: just can’t live without music , its addictive (?) but honestly it is to relieve stress while doing work/ help concentrate for long hours.

 

Youtube

When:  ~15mins

Where: Home

Why: take a break & see what new songs / videos there are

I only used this platform around the period where I just finished doing the mock-up interface and before starting on the other user experience assignments to check out  new music videos as a break.

 

DAY II  (Saturday || 4 March)
  • Morning

I woke up slightly later than usual today because I was feeling kinds tired out from yesterday. I decided to sleep a little more since today was a no-tech day which also means I have lesser things to be done and I could relax more? After getting up at around 8:15AM, I found that it was surprisingly that I did not really feel the urge to check my phone but instead I just went straight to doing the morning routines and then head out for breakfast with my family at our usual eatery in Jurong West. I didn’t really feel the urge to use my phone at that time too anyway since usually there wasn’t the need to. I helped my mother with carrying the food to our table and from there we just ate and talked. After breakfast, my mother went on to do her routine shopping for groceries at FairPrice around 10AM. Most of the time I do not follow if I had work to be done and just head home with the rest of my family to get a head start on my assignments. However, since I also couldn’t get any work done without my laptop, I decided to just go along with her like I how I usually do if I had no other pressing obligations/holidays. Since I usually helped with pushing the trolley and carrying the bags of groceries up home, I had no need for the phone otherwise. The only situation that arises was where my mum usually asks me to call my father/brother to come pick us up with the car. But it wasn’t really a problem but a slight inconvenience since my mother just used her’s to call.

  • Afternoon

We reached home close to 1PM and I helped my mum with unpacking and putting the groceries away to their respective places. Around 1:30PM, my family and I went down to a eatery just below our house for lunch. During lunch while waiting for the food, I did feel a slight urge to check my phone for any notifications but after awhile my brothers started talking about something and we then diverted to our childhood memories and that was when I forgotten about the urge as the conversation went on and on. After lunch, my brothers and I still continued talking about our childhood and we reminisced about those good/bad/funny times till around 2:30PM-ish. My older brother then offered to play the card game we occasional play with each other since he was bored. My younger brother and I agreed and we played for around 30minutes before they got bored and decided to watch a movie. They started watching “X-men Apocalypse” on our television and I was so tempted to join them as well but… oh well I can’t D: I then suddenly felt a surge of anxiety of whether could I finish my assignments on time and I almost couldn’t resist the urge to just open my laptop. I then decided to just go out and travelled to the Jurong East to just walk around and check out whatever they have there. There was no need to rely on any electronic since I know the way there well. Most of the time I would use my phone to listen to music while travelling but since it wasn’t really a long journey, I could do without it. From then, time past quite quickly since I was just walking around and looking at various things. I usually don’t really use my phone if outside for a purpose, especially more so if I’m shopping so this time was no different. I did manage to get some shopping done anyways ( yay 😀 ) and I went back home at around 5/6PM-ish. After that I just decided to tidy up and organised my table and cabinets/display shelfs since they were so messy. Again since I was buy doing something, there wasn’t the need to use any electronic other than the urge to listen to music but since my younger brother was blasting out his music on his mini speaker, all is well.

  • Night

After setting dinner, eating and clearing. I bathed , asked my brothers to play a few rounds of a different card game than earlier before continuing with cleaning my desk and all then proceeded to tidy up my messy wardrobe as well (might as well since I was it). I then decided to just go to bed at around 11PM.

 

Thoughts

I think what was different was that suddenly it felt like there was a lot more “free time” and you could do a lot of other things aside from assignments. It definitely did feel less stressful, more relaxed and a more slower pace of life compared to when having electronics. For me, I felt so because most of my assignments can only be done through my laptop so without it, nothing could be done anyway so in a way thats why there was more “leisure time”. I also felt that because I couldn’t use any electronic device, I turned to the people in my closest vicinity more to pass time. However, this also means I’m distanced from those that aren’t. For example, I could be relaxed and not check my notifications because my groupmates knew about this(tech-ban day) hence, I know I won’t really be missing out on anything anyway. But what if it wasn’t a planned activity and long-term? I think things would be quite different.

Honestly, when this assignment was given my initial thought was how am I going to survive without it. After that, I decided to do it on the day where I’ve finished most of my other assignments (many of which being groupwork) and when I did not have to travel out to meet other people much to minimise the “damages”.  Hence, I really pushed this assignment to the last few to clear and dragged on doing till I really couldn’t do anymore. Reflecting on the what I had to do in the past few days, I think I would had hit extremely, a lot, of obstacles without my laptop but mostly my phone. If I had done this during the weekdays where I was constantly out, meeting others, travelling to several places that I’m unfamiliar with I would have really needed to depend heavily on my phone. Hence, I think the result would relatively be a more drastic change in outcome and more towards a unrelaxed, more stressful and anxiety-filled experience compared to the experience written above.

 

Featured Image from here.

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In 2014, Smart Nation is an initiative launched by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. According to the initiative, it aims to support better living, stronger communities, and create more opportunities for all, by how well a society uses technology to solve its problems and address existential challenges. There are five key domains that they have highlighted that will have significant impact on the citizen and society, and in which digital technology can have a needle moving impact – Transport, home and environment, business productivity, health and enable ageing, and public sector services. In those areas, they also hope to co-create with citizens and businesses to address them. To enable the co-creation to happen, the government strives to facilitate innovations by the public and the private sector by putting in place appropriate policies and legislations to nurture a culture for experimentation, encourage innovation and the eventual adoption of new ideas.

The first question that came into mind was whether heading in the direction of making Singapore a especially technology-dependent society the correct or most suitable way? It is undeniable that technology has the knack for growing increasing more advanced and more accessible to many at a extremely rapidly rate over the years, reaching to many people and places originally inaccessible with just a simple action. It is also true that the technologies are increasingly being improved, bringing along with many benefits but also many negative aspects simultaneously as well. It also scares me if our society was so dependent on technology, what would happen when there comes the time when that technology where we depend on so desperately in our lives breakdown or disappears? While it is a good idea to harness technology to our advantage, I think it is also equally important to keep in mind of being overly-dependent on it.  

Using the example of the HealthHub’s new caregiver service, it allows one to easily access their own health records as well as their loved ones anytime, anywhere. What i found that was good about this app was that it allows for quick viewing of data no matter where you are or what time it is. This may also be extremely beneficial and convenient for those who are giving care to people whose medial is a top priority for concern and to keep in check, such as the elderly or young children,  where one can easily be updated of their latest medical conditions and appointments. However, technology being the double-edged sword, I also wonder whether such connivence would actually decrease their physical interaction? For example, one can easily check with his/her smartphone despite their busy work schedules, how his elderly parents are doing. If they do not live under the same roof, does that means that he/she has a lesser responsibility to check up personally on the elderly parents since they are doing fine? Which may snowball to a worser case scenario of family ties becoming increasingly strained or distanced. I think this question is especially crucial for developed countries like Singapore where there is a large population being the elderly.

 Art/Design Intervention:

“Propose a media art or design intervention to Smart Nation. Be imaginative and creative with your idea and support your idea with illustrations or diagrams.

This intervention can be an idea for a public art proposal, a creative use of data visualization using the open source data collected for Smart Nation, a proposal for an interface (think not just digital but incorporating cultural and social dynamics) in the public transportation system or any other public spaces or in the home.  The topic is open so I’d like to see what you can think of, stretching your imagination while putting thought and critical consideration of the Smart Nation initiative and the lecture in class.”

Initially i thought maybe i could do something with the open source data collected for Smart Nation. After browsing through the various data available for use, i thought to do something that was not commonly done yet but considered important information. I chanced upon the one about carpark rates and thought why not develop from there? Carparks are a necessity for drivers and sometimes they hesitate going to a particular place because they are unaware of the nearby places where they could park their cars or they worry about the cost.

Below is a super brief sketch of the idea or concept of the interface:

20170211_164558

 

 What i had in mind was users can first key in their intended destination (or if not, they could just choose from the list of pre-setted locations), their purpose, age group(?) and estimated duration. The purpose and estimated duration could be optional so users can choose not to put in anything however, I thought to include those to give a better “recommendation” at the bottom(sorting button area). It also shows a map with the scrolling bar at its side(not on top of the map because i feel that it obstructs the viewing experience) that acts like a slider for zooming purposes (maybe fades out when not in use? something like what mac does?). Below it displays the carpark location and parking rates and users can choose to maybe arrange it based on their preferences (eg. distance, price,etc). I was thinking also to make it like a online thing, where it displays this under the location and price rates so one can view which carpark their friends used or something along those lines (eg. current/frequency).

From there, maybe the users click the “drive to” icon which goes to another page. The top part is sort of like google maps? Where you can have a option to swap the to and from. The page also displays the traveling time, traffic flow of that particular road (real-time update picture maybe?), and the nearby amenities or attractions. I was thinking also to include at the bottom maybe a comments section where friends or people in general who used that particular carpark can share about what they felt/opinions/suggestions. Maybe past and/or personal stories from that place can be shared by people who use / used it before. 

Style-wise, I was thinking of making use of icons, colours and illustrations so that it looks aesthetically much better. Maybe some fun animations and interactive functions but generally something that is immersive/engaging but not too complex to use to engage users from all age groups. 

 

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This is a story told from the perspective of my phone therefore, my choice of portrayal is speaking simply through these screenshots. Do we really consider the ‘feelings’ of our smartphones who are like many’s close companion? What would our phone say if given the chance to speak out for themselves? This story is basically about our lack of regard and actual care for our smartphones when it does so many things for us but we’re always not satisfied with it no matter what, taking the example of dying battery life is one rather common factor.

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.05 PMScreen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.07 PM Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.09 PM Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.37 PM Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.38 PM Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.39 PM Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.40 PM copy-min Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.42 PM copy-minScreen Shot 2016-01-26 at 9.55.58 PM Screen Shot 2016-01-27 at 7.23.11 AM

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This is a story told from my perspective. Its a typical family. No matter in the end, we’ll get through troubles together and we’re always go back to one another. However, does technology actually brings us together or pull us further apart?

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