Artefact 2: Ethnographic Study of Domestic Space

Evaluation:

Upon my research of new technologies that are used to study social patterns within domestic and commercial spaces and how these technologies can help give informed patterns of information relating to technology I decided to do an ethnographic study within a domestic environment to find my own patterns of how people interact and socialize.

I drew a top view plan of a domestic environment, including the living room, bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom and mapped the data of how the inhabitants moved within this domestic domain when interfacing with technology. I used different colours to visually correspond to singular actions, including movement, interaction with technology and where the inhabitants would socialize. I found that when one person used a mobile phone within a social situation with other people they would normally move to a more private space, usually their bedroom.

This is symmetric to my research paper on the Network Society, which discussed how mobile technologies are fragmenting society. This self autonomy clearly shows that technology within a domestic space does fragment the social sphere. I’ve found however more technology is allowing people to network within a digital domain; technology in physical conditions is having a direct impact that is fragmenting this face to face socialization.

I also found that when my participants were watching TV and an advert was about to come on, they would usually interface with a personal computer, which would usually last around 10-15 minutes. This correlates to the study of energy demands when football matches where aired and upon half time energy levels where upped to supply the demand of people putting the kettle on to make a cup of tea. My individuals in my experiment would usually log onto Facebook to network with people in a digital space, this shows that today we are living within a Network Society.