Workshop on Computer Mediated Social Offline Interactions (SOFTec 2012)
Nemanja Memarović, Marc Langheinrich, Vassilis Kostakos, Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Elaine M. Huang · 2012
The proliferation of social networking sites and mobile technology allows us to check on our friends and family, follow what experts in our field think, or simply 'check-in' online. While in many ways advantageous, the ability to be constantly connected is significantly affecting our offline interaction behavior. People sharing a table today might ignore each other for stretches at a time in order to interact with far-away friends through mobile technology instead. The goal of this workshop is to examine how we can build technologies that promote offline interactions. We plan to discuss how offline interactions can be spurred within different social groups and different settings through currently available devices and technologies. We also plan to explore how such technologies can be built and used for different types of offline engagement (e.g., playful vs. serious). The workshop aims to establish a community interested in computer mediated offline interaction.