Smartphone effect

Abstract

The smartphone has changed how people experience digital information. Often times, the smartphone is neither used for solving problems, nor for seeking pleasure. We define this condition as post-optimal use, where there is a shift towards increasingly unplanned uses of the smartphone. HCI Design, however, fails to understand these uses due to its dominant traditions of technosolutionism and hedonism. Thus, we study the effect of the smartphone on people, to find new tools and methods for understanding the user experience of post-optimal uses. For this, we applied a hybrid approach of empirical and theoretical studies. The empirical part comprised four individual diary studies that aimed at describing smartphone uses that were neither pragmatic nor hedonic. First, we used a Photo Diary to describe the activity of smartphone use, for studying the behavior and the con-text of use. Then, we complemented this study with a Feedback Diary to describe the mental states during smartphone use, for sampling momentary feelings. Thirdly, we added an Elicitation Diary to describe the users’ memory of smartphone use, for reconstructing the meaningfulness of smartphone use. And finally, we conclud-ed with a Video Diary to describe the users’ memory gaps of smartphone use for capturing the continuous user experience of smartphone use.The theoretical part comprised four essays that aimed at recovering the meaning of smartphone use. First, we applied a Critical Theory approach in introducing and discussing Critical Design as a research methodology to overcome the dominant ideologies of technosolutionism and hedonism, and for find-ing an interpretive lens that can rationalize smartphone use in alternative ways. We continued this quest through our conceptual proposal of Post-optimal Use to create that interpretive lens, for HCI Design to think differently about use experiences with the smartphone. Thirdly, we applied a speculative approach to think about meaning-making with material and digital products, in order to conceptualize the lost symbolic dimension of the smartphone use experience. Finally, we concluded the thesis with the proposal of a Post-optimal Use Process to reinstate the lost symbolic dimension of the smartphone user experience. The outcome from the empirical stud-ies was the theory of the SMARTPHONE EFFECT that describes how smartphone use becomes increasingly meaningless. The outcome from the theoretical studies was the concept of POST-OPTIMAL USE as an interpre-tive lens to understand why smartphone use becomes increasingly meaningless, and what designers can do about it. The empirical and theoretical studies complemented each other in offering a holistic understanding of smartphone use. Our contribution is to offer a new thinking-tool for HCI Design that helps answer how designers should think about and reconsider user experience qualities of the smartphone. Ultimately, we state that Post-optimal Use can be an antidote to the detrimental effects of Technology Push.