Monday, September 12, 2011

Lu : observing with dandan at Bestbuy

It is fun to observe people in Bestbuy but only kind of embarrassing when others found you were staring at them.

People have different approaches to technologies:
Someone gets really close the device and the immersion is very obvious. This kind of people sometimes forget they are in a public space and they are just too into the technology.
Some others like to keep a distance from technology. I have seen a lot of men doing this. When they tried to use some computer, they are kind of away from the screen and reach their hands out. It seems like they are very cautious about getting close to the device.

Dandan mentioned that some people getting shy when being shot by cameras at public space.

I also remembered the experience when I was working in Virtual Environment Research Group. They took people into the lab and tested their virtual patient. I found just the opposite situation in Bestbuy. There's no expert, no one leading these viewers through technologies. So these people just wondering into the technology land and try interesting stuff.

Sometimes, with this technology intervention, people get alleviated from social pressure, or they are less interactive with each other. But sometimes, the technology intervention increase the pressure and people-people interaction.

People can get relaxed or nervous in a technology presence environment. These technologies can either draw their attentions and makes the atmosphere fun, or seriously depress everyone.

This is an interesting activity to observe people interaction with people, environment and machines.

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