skip to main content
10.1145/2686612.2686624acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesozchiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

An internet of social things

Published: 02 December 2014 Publication History

Abstract

The Internet of Things is a vision for a world of interconnected smart devices. We present an alternative vision based on a review of literature that emphasizes the importance and role of objects in social relations. We situate this work in relation to a conceptual understanding of objects and sociality, and note some methodological implications of a more object-centred sociality that may suggest design opportunities alongside the emerging Internet of Things.

References

[1]
Ashton, K. That 'internet of things' thing. RFiD Journal, 22 (2009), 97--114.
[2]
Barthel, R., Mackley, K. L., Hudson-Smith A., Karpovich, A., de Jode, M., and Speed, C. An internet of old things as an augmented memory system. Pers Ubiquit Comput 17 (2013), 321--333.
[3]
Bell, G., Blythe, M., Gaver, B., Sengers, P., and Wright, P. Designing culturally situated technologies for the home. Ext. Abstracts CHI 2003. ACM Press (2003), 1062--1063.
[4]
Binder, T., De Michelis, G, Ehn, P., Jacucci, G., Linde, P., and Wagner, I. What is the object of design? Ext. Abstracts CHI 2012. ACM Press (2012), 21--30.
[5]
Blythe, M., and Monk, A. Notes towards an ethnography of domestic technology. Proc. Designing interactive systems. ACM Press (2002), 277--281.
[6]
Brereton, M. Designing from Somewhere: A located, relational and transformative view of design. In J. Löwgren, L. Malmborg, and T. Binder (Eds). (Re-) searching a digital Bauhaus. London: Springer-Verlag (2009), 99--119.
[7]
Brereton, M. Habituated objects: Everyday tangibles that foster the independent living of an elderly woman. Interactions July/August (2013), 20--24.
[8]
Brereton, M., and McGarry, B. An observational study of how objects support engineering design thinking and communication: implications for the design of tangible media. Proc. SIGCHI. ACM Press (2000), 217--224.
[9]
Brown, B. Thing Theory. Critical Inquiry 28, 1 (2001), 1--22.
[10]
Callon, M. Some Elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fisherman of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.), Power, action and belief: a new sociology of knowledge? Routledge (1986), 196--223.
[11]
Chi, P. Y. P., Chen, J. H., Liu, S. Y., and Chu, H. H. Designing smart living objects--enhancing vs. distracting traditional human--object interaction. In Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction Platforms and Techniques (2007), 788--797.
[12]
Davis, H, Nansen, B, Vetere, F, Robertson, T, Brereton, M, Durick, J, and Vaisutis, K. Homemade cookbooks: A recipe for sharing. Proc. DIS 2014, ACM Press (2014), 73--82.
[13]
Dourish, P., and Mazmanian, M. Media as material: Information representations as material foundations for organizational practice. In P. R. Carlile, D. Nicolini, A. Langley and H. Tsoukas (Eds.), How Matter Matters: Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. Oxford University Press (2013).
[14]
Ehn, P. Participation in Design Things. Proc. Participatory Design Conference. ACM Press (2008) 92--101.
[15]
Engeström, J. (2008) Social Objects: What Beach balls and Potatoes Can Teach Us about Social Networks. Slideshare. http://www.slideshare.net/rashmi/jyriengestrom-social-objects (retrieved July 1, 2013).
[16]
Fallman, D. The new good: Exploring the potential of philosophy of technology to contribute to human-computer interaction. Proc. CHI 2011. ACM Press (2011), 1051--1060.
[17]
Gaver, W., Bowers, J., Boucher, A., Law, A., Pennington, S. and Villar, N. The history tablecloth: illuminating domestic activity. Proc. DIS 2006. ACM Press (2006), 199--208.
[18]
Greenfield, A. Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing. New Riders Publishing (2006).
[19]
Grimes, A. and Harper, R. Celebratory technology: new directions for food research in HCI. Proc. CHI 2008, ACM Press (2008), 467--476.
[20]
Harman, G. Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. re.press (2009).
[21]
Heidegger, M. 1971. The Thing, in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. A. Hofstadter. Perennial (1971), 174--82.
[22]
Kalanithi, J. J. and Bove, V. M. Connectibles: Tangible social networks. Proc. TEI 2008. ACM Press (2008), 199--206.
[23]
Knorr-Cetina, K. Sociality with Objects: Social Relations in Postsocial Knowledge Societies. Theory, Culture and Society, 14, 4, (1997), 1--30.
[24]
Latour, B. From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik. How to Make Things Public. An Introduction, in Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, B. Latour and P. Weibel, Eds. MIT Press (2005), 1--31.
[25]
Martinussen, E. S. and Arnall, T. Designing with RFID. Proc. TEI 2009. ACM Press (2009), 343--350.
[26]
Leong, T., Vetere, F., and Howard, S. Randomness as a resource for design. In Proc. DIS 2006, ACM Press (2006), 132--139.
[27]
Miller, D. Stuff. London: Polity (2010).
[28]
Mugellini, E., Rubegni, E., Gerardi, S. and Khaled, O. A. Using personal objects as tangible interfaces for memory recollection and sharing. Proc. TEI 2007. ACM Press (2007), 231--238.
[29]
Nansen, B, Arnold, M, Gibbs, M, and Davis, H. Dwelling with Media Stuff: Latencies of Materiality in Four Australian Homes. Environment and Planning D, 29, 4 (2011), 693--715.
[30]
Odom, W. and Pierce, J., Improving with age: designing enduring interactive products. Ext. Abstracts CHI 2009. ACM Press (2009), 3793--3798.
[31]
Orr, J. Talking about machines: an ethnography of a modern job. Ithaca: ILR Press (1996).
[32]
Pandey, Sumit, and Srivastava, S. Keynect: tangible social network. Proc. Creativity and Innovation in Design. ACM (2011), 347--350.
[33]
Robertson, T., Kan, M., Sadler, K, and Hagen, P., Uncovering traces of mobile practices: 'the bag study'. Proc. OzCHI 2005. ACM Press (2005), 1--4.
[34]
Robles, E., and Wiberg, M. Texturing the "material turn" in interaction design. Proc. TEI 2010. ACM Press (2010), 137--144.
[35]
Rosner, D., Blanchette, J., Buechley, L., Dourish, P., Mazmanian, M. From Materials to Materiality: Connecting Practice and Theory in HCI. Ext. Abstracts CHI 2012. ACM Press (2012), 2787--2790.
[36]
Suchman, L. Human--machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions. Cambridge University Press (2007).
[37]
Turkle, S. (Ed.) Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT Press, (2007).
[38]
Vaisutis, K, Brereton, M., Robertson, T., Vetere, F., Durick, J. Nansen, B., and Buys, L. Invisible connections: Investigating older people's emotions and social relations around objects. Ext. Abstracts CHI 2014. AC Press (2014).
[39]
Venkatesh, A. Digital Home Technologies and Transformation of Households. Information Systems Frontiers, 10 (2008), 391--395.
[40]
Wiberg, M. Methodology for materiality: interaction design research through a material lens. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 18 (2014), 635--636.
[41]
Wiberg, M. and Robles, E. Computational compositions: aesthetics, materials, and interaction design. International Journal of Design, 4, 2 (2010), 65--76.

Cited By

View all
  • (2023)Smart Streets as a Cyber-Physical Social Platform: A Conceptual FrameworkSensors10.3390/s2303139923:3(1399)Online publication date: 26-Jan-2023
  • (2022)Digital Technologies and Civil SocietyDigital Towns10.1007/978-3-030-91247-5_5(91-108)Online publication date: 10-Feb-2022
  • (2021)Thing Constellation Visualizer: Exploring Emergent Relationships of Everyday ObjectsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34798665:CSCW2(1-29)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. An internet of social things

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Other conferences
    OzCHI '14: Proceedings of the 26th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Designing Futures: the Future of Design
    December 2014
    689 pages
    ISBN:9781450306539
    DOI:10.1145/2686612
    • Conference Chair:
    • Tuck Leong
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    • U1: U1 PTY LTD
    • IDHuP: Interaction Design and Human Practice Lab
    • UTS-HCTDRS: The UTS Human Centred Technology Design Research Strength
    • CSIRO
    • QUT
    • HFESA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Inc.
    • University of Technology Sydney
    • IDF: The Interaction Design Foundation
    • CHISIG: Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group, Human Factors & Ergonomics Society of Australia

    In-Cooperation

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 02 December 2014

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. ethnography
    2. internet of things
    3. materiality
    4. social objects
    5. user

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Funding Sources

    • Microsoft Research Centre for Social NUI
    • Australian Research Council Discovery Project
    • Discovery Early Career Researcher Award

    Conference

    OzCHI '14
    Sponsor:
    • U1
    • IDHuP
    • UTS-HCTDRS
    • HFESA
    • IDF
    • CHISIG
    OzCHI '14: the Future of Design
    December 2 - 5, 2014
    New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Acceptance Rates

    OzCHI '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 85 of 176 submissions, 48%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 362 of 729 submissions, 50%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)29
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
    Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2023)Smart Streets as a Cyber-Physical Social Platform: A Conceptual FrameworkSensors10.3390/s2303139923:3(1399)Online publication date: 26-Jan-2023
    • (2022)Digital Technologies and Civil SocietyDigital Towns10.1007/978-3-030-91247-5_5(91-108)Online publication date: 10-Feb-2022
    • (2021)Thing Constellation Visualizer: Exploring Emergent Relationships of Everyday ObjectsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34798665:CSCW2(1-29)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
    • (2021)SneezeLove: Embodying Cultural Superstitions in Connected DevicesProceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3461778.3462118(1082-1086)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2021
    • (2021)Urban IoT: Advances, Challenges, and Opportunities for Mass Data Collection, Analysis, and VisualizationUrban Informatics10.1007/978-981-15-8983-6_38(701-719)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2021
    • (2020)Software Agent-Centric Semantic Social Network for Cyber-Physical Interaction and CollaborationInternational Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering10.1142/S021819402040010030:06(859-893)Online publication date: 29-Jul-2020
    • (2020)Computational Offloading for CNN-based Toxic Comment Detection on a Smartwatch2020 Fifth International Conference on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing (FMEC)10.1109/FMEC49853.2020.9144770(284-288)Online publication date: Apr-2020
    • (2019)Understanding Family Collaboration Around Lightweight Modification of Everyday Objects in the HomeProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/33592873:CSCW(1-24)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2019
    • (2018)Near future cities of thingsProceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3240167.3240273(787-800)Online publication date: 29-Sep-2018
    • (2018)A Situated Exploration of Designing for Personal Health Ecosystems through Data-enabled DesignProceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3196709.3196769(109-120)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2018
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media