Article

Being watched or being special: how I learned to stop worrying and love being monitored, surveilled, and assessed

Authors:

Abhay Sukumaran,

Kathryn Rickertsen,

Cliff NassAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 831 - 839

https://doi.org/10.1145/1124772.1124894

Published: 22 April 2006 Publication History

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between display of feedback (public vs. private) and the basis for evaluation (present vs. absent) of that feedback. Using a controlled, laboratory setting, we employ a fundamentally social, interpersonal context (speed-dating). Two participants (one male and one female) receive real-time performance feedback about either only themselves (private) or about both participants (public). We measure participant perceptions of monitoring, conformity, and self-consciousness about themselves and their dating partner. We also assess perceptions of system invasiveness, system competence, and system support. Results reveal a consistent pattern of significant interaction between feedback display and basis for evaluation conditions. In each of these interactions, public feedback with an added, trivial, basis for evaluation creates significantly lower perception of monitoring, conformity, self-consciousness, and system invasiveness, than the other three conditions. Additionally there is a main effect for basis for evaluation with respect to system competence and supportiveness. In each case, the presence of a basis produces more positive assessments than its absence. The experiment shows that reactions to being monitored and evaluated do not differ strictly along the dimension of public vs. private; basis for evaluation of feedback functions as a mediator and thus co-determines participant attitudinal responses. We discuss the implications of this at several levels, and present a broader cultural explanation in terms of the theory of rationalization. We also discuss the issues around and functionality of linking laboratory settings to larger cultural contexts in this and related fields of inquiry.

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Cited By

Hosseiny Marani ALevine JBaumer EAl Hasan MXiong L(2022)One Rating to Rule Them All?Proceedings of the 31st ACM International Conference on Information & Knowledge Management10.1145/3511808.3557410(768-779)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3511808.3557410
Feil-Seifer DMatarić M(2020)Human-Robot InteractionEncyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_274-5(1-23)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_274-5
Cervantes MRamani RWorthy PWeigel JViller SMatthews BFoth MJu WSchroeter RViller S(2016)Could the Inherent Nature of the Internet of Things Inhibit Person-to-Person Connection?Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems10.1145/2908805.2909418(177-180)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2908805.2909418
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Being watched or being special: how I learned to stop worrying and love being monitored, surveilled, and assessed
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2006

1353 pages

ISBN:1595933727

DOI:10.1145/1124772

Editors:
Rebecca Grinter
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
,
Thomas Rodden
University of Nottingham, UK
,
Paul Aoki
Intel, USA
,
Ed Cutrell
Microsoft, USA
,
Robin Jeffries
Google, USA
,
Gary Olson
University of Michigan, USA

Copyright © 2006 ACM.

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]

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Published: 22 April 2006

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CHI06: CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 22 - 27, 2006

Québec, Montréal, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

Hosseiny Marani ALevine JBaumer EAl Hasan MXiong L(2022)One Rating to Rule Them All?Proceedings of the 31st ACM International Conference on Information & Knowledge Management10.1145/3511808.3557410(768-779)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3511808.3557410
Feil-Seifer DMatarić M(2020)Human-Robot InteractionEncyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_274-5(1-23)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_274-5
Cervantes MRamani RWorthy PWeigel JViller SMatthews BFoth MJu WSchroeter RViller S(2016)Could the Inherent Nature of the Internet of Things Inhibit Person-to-Person Connection?Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference Companion Publication on Designing Interactive Systems10.1145/2908805.2909418(177-180)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2908805.2909418
Baumer EGuha SQuan EMimno DGay G(2015)Missing Photos, Suffering Withdrawal, or Finding Freedom? How Experiences of Social Media Non-Use Influence the Likelihood of ReversionSocial Media + Society10.1177/20563051156148511:2Online publication date: 3-Dec-2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115614851
Su NWang LBegole BKim JInkpen KWoo W(2015)From Third to Surveilled PlaceProceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2702123.2702574(1659-1668)Online publication date: 18-Apr-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2702123.2702574
Sundar SBellur SOh JJia HKim H(2014)Theoretical Importance of Contingency in Human-Computer InteractionCommunication Research10.1177/009365021453496243:5(595-625)Online publication date: 22-May-2014
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650214534962
Moundalexis MNag B(2013)Decision Making, Dashboard Displays, and Human Performance in Service SystemsInternational Journal of Information Systems in the Service Sector10.4018/ijisss.20131001035:4(32-46)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/ijisss.2013100103
Caine KOlsen DHinckley KMorris MHudson SGreenberg S(2009)Supporting privacy by preventing misclosureCHI '09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/1520340.1520448(3145-3148)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1520340.1520448
Feil-Seifer DMatarić M(2009)Human Robot InteractionEncyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_274(4643-4659)Online publication date: 2009
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_274
O'Driscoll C(2008)Privacy in context: Privacy issues in Ubiquitous Computing applications2008 Third International Conference on Digital Information Management10.1109/ICDIM.2008.4746842(827-837)Online publication date: Nov-2008
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDIM.2008.4746842

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