CHS: Small: Context-aware mobile systems to facilitate synergistic face-to-face interactions

网络-人类系统拥有无缝移动社交导航的前景，在移动中的人们能够在正确的地点和正确的时间与正确的人建立联系。偶遇是互不熟悉的人之间的意外相遇，是罕见但强有力的事件，为人们提供了发展新社会关系的机会。建立新的社会关系，从而增加社会资本是重要的，因为例如，置身于丰富联系的社会环境中的个人能够更好地处理个人挫折，如经济上的失败和疾病，并为他人提供社会支持。虽然我们经常被潜在的新朋友包围，但识别他们是谁以及如何与他们联系是有问题的。情景感知系统有可能调解这样的偶然相遇，从而改变我们建立新社会关系的方式。这个项目的目标是了解偶遇的动态，并开发、部署和测试系统的机制，以促进这种偶遇导致新的社会联系。在第一项研究中，研究人员将进行一项前瞻性队列研究(n=500)，其中两组新生将被跟踪18个月，探索由于偶然相遇而导致的社交网络变化的程度，以及背景感知系统如何增强新关系的形成。人种学和体验抽样研究的结合将提供对偶然相遇的动态以及影响人们在旅途中与他人见面的动机的上下文变量的洞察，例如地点的性质；附近的人数(社会上下文)；个人用户上下文，例如当前活动(认知上下文)；两个潜在匹配的人之间的关系的性质，例如共享属性(关系上下文)，以及隐私问题。第二阶段涉及设计研究，以产生创新的机制和系统设计，并将在现场使用中进行验证。这些研究的结果将确定背景数据如何识别偶然相遇的机会并支持偶然的介绍，从而完成CHS创建系统以增强人类能力和促进社会凝聚力的使命。

Cyber-Human Systems hold the promise of seamless mobile social navigation, where people on the move are able to make connections to the right people at the right place and the right time. Chance encounters, the unintended meeting between people unfamiliar with each other, are rare but powerful incidents that offer people an opportunity to develop new social ties. Building new social ties and thus increasing social capital is important because individuals embedded in richly connected social environments are, for example, better able to handle personal setbacks, such as financial failures and illness, and to provide social support for others. While we often are surrounded by potential new friends it is problematic to identify who they are and how to connect with them. Context-aware systems have the potential to mediate such chance encounters and, hence, transform the way we make new social ties. The goal of this project is to understand the dynamics of chance encounters and to develop, deploy and test mechanisms for systems that can facilitate such chance encounters leading to new social ties.The project has two phases. In the first, the investigators will conduct a prospective cohort study (n=500), in which two cohorts of freshmen students will be followed over 18 months, exploring both the extent of changes in their social networks that are the result of chance encounters and how formation of new ties might be enhanced by a context-aware system. A combination of ethnographic and experience sampling studies will provide insights into the dynamics of chance encounters and the contextual variables that influence people's motivations for meeting others when on-the-go, such as the nature of place; number of people nearby (social context); the individual user context, e.g., current activity (cognitive context); the nature of the relationship between two potentially matched people, e.g., shared attributes (relational context), and privacy concerns. The second phase involves design research to generate innovative mechanisms and designs for systems that will be validated in field use. Findings from these studies will identify ways that contextual data can identify opportunities for chance encounters and support serendipitous introductions, fulfilling the CHS missions of creating systems that enhance human capabilities and advance society's cohesiveness.