Gifting Interpretations of Personal Data
Maria Karyda, Iyubanit Rodríguez, Andrés Lucero · 2018
Research on physical representations of data has often used personal data as its focus. Core aim of making personal data physical is to provoke self-reflections through a felt experience. In this paper, we present a preliminary study which employs the idea of gift-giving as a means to explore one's online data. Our main findings report strategies of relating to the data of strangers as well as a conflict between what one thought of their online self and what others were able to find. We discuss how the gifts became platforms for self-reflection, similar to physical data models. Then, we connect that to the engagement of a third person (gift-giver) in the process, highlighting the potential of such involvement. In the future, we focus on how to link people's meaningful artifacts with their personal data.