Field Study
We conducted a field study for two weeks to collect data from 25 participants' everyday lives. During the field study, participants were asked to carry a wearable device (Fitbit charge HR), keep an app (RU Sensors Study) installed on their smart-phones, and answer to three types of questionnaires (information seeking style, social capital, and general personality).
Information Search Task
| # | Task Type | Task Topic | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Individual Task | Data Security | 25 Individuals |
| 2 | Collaborative Task | Health and Wellness | 12 Pairs |
We asked participants to conduct exploratory searches to write reports about given topics.
Results 1: Individual Task
Through the preliminary analysis - correlation between selected variables - we found relationships as follows:
Extraversion
Personality & Information Exposure
Extraversion, one of the characteristics in Big Five, seems to have negative relation with the information exposure - Coverage and Unique Coverage. This results might indicate that extraversive people tend to be satisfied with less information.
Number of SMS
Social Interaction & Information Relevancy
The number of SMS has positive relationship with Unique Relevant Coverage. This results infers that an individual who sends/receives relatively higher number of messages per day tends to understand and learn the topic differently from others who does not.
Distinct Location
Geolocational Movement & Information Exposure
One additional interesting finding is the positive relation between Unique Coverage and Distinct Location. The result indicate that a person who moves more tends to visit Web pages that have not visited by other participants. This brings us an interesting question: "Does geolocational movement affect information exposure to an individual and affect again toward the way of thinking and understanding?"
Results 2: Collaborative Task
One of expectations from the collaboration is synergistic outcome - the whole being greater than the sum. We analyzed the synergy effect based on the participants to come up with finding as follows:
Social Context
Social Interaction & Synergy
We found relationship between the dissimilarity in social interaction (Number of SMS and Number of counterpart for SMS) and the synergy effect. This means that the more participants are different with regard to the social activities that are measured how many people they are keeping to talk with, the less synergy effect they have when working together regarding the information exposure (Coverage and Unique Coverage).
Personal Context
Physical Activity & Synergy
We found the "Liebig's Law of Minimum ," which is originally a concept applied to plant or crop growth meaning that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not cause the increasing plat growth and the yield. One hypothetical possibility related with the "Law of Minimum" we found from the results is physical activity measured as Minutes of Being Very Active. The synergy effect is related with the one person who has least amount of physical activeness.
Personal vs. Social Contexts
Different aspects of personal and social context
While the differences in social contexts between collaborator might matter, when seeing personal contexts, or even only one person in a team might affect the outcomes.