User-Tablet Relationship Project

 

 

TASK

Consumers of tablet computers have close physical interactions with their tablets. This leads to an interesting research question of whether they consider their tablets as a person who accompanies them in different life circumstances.

 

PROCEDURE

Semi-structured interviews were conducted on 30 informants with various demographics. Questions that probed user-tablet relationship were asked - 1) what do you like/dislike about your tablet?; 2) What do you usually use your tablet for?; 3) Can you show me your favorite apps?; and 4) What sorts of impact does tablet have on your life? Finally, all informants were asked to describe their tablets as a person. Data were transcribed and coded by two independent coders via initial coding, focused coding, and theoretical coding.

 

FINDINGS

Two constructs - relationship stability and intensity - were developed from the three phases of coding. Relationship intensity is the social-contextualized salience of a relationship, determining how human-like the relationship is. Relationship stability is the durability or dependency of one or both parties on a relationship, determining the categories from which tablet users extract information to construct the relationship. Below is an illustration of all categories of user-tablet relationship that fit into the intensity-stability coordinate system.