UBhave: ubiquitous and social computing for positive behaviour change

2010年移动电话用户预计将超过50亿，在线社交网络的使用正在飙升(仅Facebook一家就有超过5亿用户)。今天的移动电话代表着一个强大的计算平台，因为它们能够通过各种传感器(如加速计、蓝牙、麦克风和磁力计)进行感知，并具有处理和通信能力。手机是日常生活的一部分，因此是调查行为和促进行为改变的一个非常合适的工具，而社交网络提供了有关用户偏好和社交互动的宝贵数据来源。这项提案将调查使用手机进行行为改变干预的力量和挑战。这将涉及解决通过功率有限的移动电话测量人类行为的多个方面的挑战，以及将通过手机提取的信息与在线社交网络收集的社会数据相结合。数字行为改变干预(DBCI)是对行为改变的交互式、自动化的建议和持续支持，通常包括：基于对评估需求、情况和偏好的问题的回复的个性化建议；对目标设定、规划和进度监测的支持；自动提醒和与进展相关的反馈和鼓励；通过电子邮件、在线论坛等获得社会支持。DBCI可用于各种不同的行为；例如，减少危险或反社会行为，提高工作场所的生产率，加强学习活动，或支持对环境具有重要意义的生活方式变化，如减少能源消耗。DBCI是一种相对较新的支持行为改变的方法，因为支持这种个性化交互支持的技术直到现在才变得可用。它们为科学家提供了一种手段，从比以前可能的更大的人群样本中对行为变化的过程进行详细评估。传统的DBCI主要由PC提供，并根据用户对有关他们的活动和感受的问题的答案向他们提供反馈。我们的目标是利用手机技术和在线社交网络应用程序在日常生活中收集此类信息，而不需要用户回答问题。手机可以用来感知用户是否活跃，他们的情绪，以及他们和谁在一起或在交谈，而在线社交网络可以提供关于用户态度和社交联系的信息。然后，这些信息可以被用来在正确的时间向用户传递正确的信息，这取决于用户正在做什么和感受到什么。我们将与用户密切合作，开发符合道德、可接受和实用的衡量和行为干预方法。然后，我们将通过开发一系列DBCI来演示和实验测试我们的工具和技术的能力、性能和有效性，以解决一个主要的公共卫生问题-体重管理。我们将从之前参与过我们研究的300万Facebook用户中招募非常大的样本来尝试这些DBCI。我们将开发新的方法来分析我们跨越时间和空间从非常大量的人那里收集的信息。我们的目标是深入了解不同的人如何以及为什么对不同的干预组件做出反应和使用。这将帮助我们和其他人在未来设计更受欢迎和更有帮助的DBCI。我们开发的工具将被设计为易于重复使用，并可供其他人适应不同类型的行为变化。为了确保广泛的多学科社区能够从我们开发的改变行为的工具和方法中受益，我们将提供广泛的在线教育和培训材料、研讨会和交流。

Mobile phone users are expected to exceed 5 billion in 2010 and the use of online social networks is soaring (Facebook alone has more than 500 million users). Today's mobile phones represent a powerful computing platform, given their ability to sense through a variety of sensors (e.g. accelerometer, Bluetooth, microphone, and magnetometer), their processing and communication capabilities. Phones are part of everyday life, and therefore represent an exceptionally suitable tool for investigating behaviour and promoting behaviour change, while social networks provide a valuable source of data about user preferences and social interactions. This proposal will investigate the power and challenges of using mobile phones for behaviour change interventions. This will involve tackling the challenges of measuring many aspects of human behaviour through power-limited mobile phones as well as integrating the information extracted through the phones with social data gathered on online social networks.Digital Behaviour Change Interventions (DBCIs) are interactive, automated packages of advice and ongoing support for behaviour change, which typically include: personalised advice based on responses to questions assessing needs, circumstances and preferences; support for goal-setting, planning and progress monitoring; automated reminders and progress-relevant feedback and encouragement; access to social support by email, online forums etc. DBCIs can be used for a wide range of different behaviours; for example, to reduce risky or antisocial behaviour, increase productivity in the workplace, enhance learning activities, or support environmentally important lifestyle change, such as reducing energy use. DBCIs are a relatively new method of supporting behaviour change, as the technology to support this kind of personalised interactive support is only now becoming available. They provide scientists with a means of carrying out detailed assessments of the process of behaviour change from a much larger sample of the population than has previously been possible.Traditional DBCIs have mainly been delivered by PCs and provide feedback to users based on their answers to questions about their activities and feelings. Our aim is to use mobile phone technology and online social networking applications to gather this kind of information during daily life without the need for users to answer questions. Mobile phones can be employed to sense whether the user is active, their mood, and who they are with or talking to, while online social networks can provide information about users' attitudes and social contacts. This information can then be used to deliver exactly the right kind of messages to users at the right time, depending on what the user is doing and feeling.We will work closely with users to develop ethical, acceptable and practical methods of measurement and behavioural intervention. We will then demonstrate and experimentally test the capabilities, performance and effectiveness of our tools and techniques by developing a range of DBCIs to address a major public health problem, weight management. We will recruit very large samples of people to try these DBCIs from our 'MyPersonality' population of 3 million Facebook users who have previously taken part in our studies. We will develop new methods to analyse the information we gather across time and space from a very large number of people. We aim to develop an in-depth understanding of how and why different people react to and use different intervention components. This will help us, and others, to design more popular and helpful DBCIs in the future.The tools we develop will be designed to be easily reusable and adaptable by others for different types of behaviour change. To ensure that a wide multidisciplinary community can benefit from the tools and methods for behaviour change that we develop we will provide extensive online educational and training materials, workshops, and exchanges.