What is it about?
This paper introduces a fictional app called Connected Companion (CoCo). It is a wearable (watch) that tracks caffeine, alcohol and stress levels. When these levels change people are prompted with notifications suggesting activities such as going for a walk, with the aim of improving their ‘wellness’. The paper shows the way this system works and then outlines a study with different people’s experiences of using the application in their own lives. The paper finishes by discussing the power and responsibility that comes with building systems that attempt to take people’s context (i.e. when at a bar you should drink water to improve your health) into account.
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Why is it important?
This paper adds to research around the consequences of using health and wellbeing tracking technologies as well as the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) could have on wellbeing. Discussing potential challenges with these technologies before they exist in the real world is important in design research to explore potential realities before they impact people's lives. Fictional papers such as this one could be used to check whether a system would meet guidelines so future systems built help support our wellbeing.
Perspectives
I hope this paper shows people that there are implications for using AI in self-tracking technologies and not considering the ethical and social impacts of these technologies early on could have a lasting impact on people's lives.
Kim Snooks
Lancaster University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Context-Aware Wearables, May 2021, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3411763.3450367.
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