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Age differences rendezvousing: reminders for side-stepping

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Abstract

This paper reports a diary study of the use of mobile telephones for rendezvousing by young adults (aged 18–30) and mature adults (aged 31–45) in the UK. A number of age differences were found. Specifically, 31–45s more frequently: (1) attributed problems rendezvousing to the overrunning of previous activities, and to the spontaneous performance of additional tasks (‘side-stepping’); (2) reported that ‘problem’ rendezvous resulted in unnecessary sacrifices; and (3) changed plans for the rendezvous. These differences arose, because additional family commitments encouraged 31–45s to pack their daily programme of activities more tightly than 18–30s. Mobile phones might better target 31–45s, if they, for example, enhanced To Do Lists with context-sensitive reminders, in the first instance, reminders triggered by location (GSM network cellID) and logging off from PCs.

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Notes

  1. Lost opportunity, here, refers to the loss of not doing what the participant would have done, had the rendezvouzers met as initially agreed

  2. For example, taking the opportunity to call in at the shops on the way to the rendezvous point

  3. Kinds of lost opportunity, here, include restructing the post-rendezvous activity, reduced participation in this activity by one or more rendezvousers, nonly–participation in the activity, or cancellation of the whole activity

  4. User experience, here, refers to ratings for satisfaction, frustration, mental effort, disruption, convenience and social acceptability of communication

  5. The apparent increase in occurrence of stress and lost opportunity in 31–45s (which, recall, was not statistically significant), is taken to suggest, if anything that 31–45s have more reason to regard failure to meet as agreed to be problematic, because their daily programme of activity is more tightly packed. If 31–45s were less capable of using phones to soften schedules and smooth potentially awkward situations, then both the occurrence and reported levels of stress and lost opportunity would have been significantly higher for 31–45s, and they were not

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Acknowledgement

Thanks are due to Dana McKay and others at APCHI2004 for their many comments and contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing and Information Systems, Kingston University, Kingston Upon Thames, UK

    Martin Colbert

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  1. Martin Colbert
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Colbert, M. Age differences rendezvousing: reminders for side-stepping. Pers Ubiquit Comput 9, 404–412 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-005-0032-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-005-0032-9

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