Getting closer: an empirical investigation of the proximity of user to their smart phones

TY - CHAP

T1 - Getting closer

T2 - 13th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing

AU - Dey, Anind K.

AU - Wac, Katarzyna

AU - Ferreira, Denzil

AU - Tassini, Kevin

AU - Hong, Jin-Hyuk

AU - Ramos, Julian

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - Much research in ubiquitous computing assumes that a user's phone will be always on and at-hand, for collecting user context and for communicating with a user. Previous work with the previous generation of mobile phones has shown that such an assumption is false. Here, we investigate whether this assumption about users' proximity to their mobile phones holds for a new generation of mobile phones, smart phones. We conduct a data collection field study of 28 smart phone owners over a period of 4 weeks. We show that in fact this assumption is still false, with the within arm's reach proximity being true close to 50% of the time, similar to the earlier work. However, we also show that smart phone proximity within the same room (arm+room) as the user is true almost 90% of the time. We discuss the reasons for these phone proximities and the implications of this on the development of mobile phone applications, particularly those that collect user and environmental context, and delivering notification to users. We also show that we can accurately predict the proximity at the arm level and arm+room level with 75 and 83% accuracy, respectively, with features simple to collect and model on a mobile phone. Further we show that for several individuals who are almost always within the arm+room level, we can predict this level with over 90% accuracy.

AB - Much research in ubiquitous computing assumes that a user's phone will be always on and at-hand, for collecting user context and for communicating with a user. Previous work with the previous generation of mobile phones has shown that such an assumption is false. Here, we investigate whether this assumption about users' proximity to their mobile phones holds for a new generation of mobile phones, smart phones. We conduct a data collection field study of 28 smart phone owners over a period of 4 weeks. We show that in fact this assumption is still false, with the within arm's reach proximity being true close to 50% of the time, similar to the earlier work. However, we also show that smart phone proximity within the same room (arm+room) as the user is true almost 90% of the time. We discuss the reasons for these phone proximities and the implications of this on the development of mobile phone applications, particularly those that collect user and environmental context, and delivering notification to users. We also show that we can accurately predict the proximity at the arm level and arm+room level with 75 and 83% accuracy, respectively, with features simple to collect and model on a mobile phone. Further we show that for several individuals who are almost always within the arm+room level, we can predict this level with over 90% accuracy.

KW - mobile devices, mobility, proximity, smart phone

U2 - 10.1145/2030112.2030135

DO - 10.1145/2030112.2030135

M3 - Book chapter

SP - 163

EP - 172

BT - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

Y2 - 17 September 2011 through 21 September 2011

ER -