ACM CSCW 2016 Conference Explores How Computers and Humans Interact

New Studies Include Thought-Provoking Examinations of Social Media

New York, NY, February 10, 2016 – Can parents limit their children’s use of technology? How do Cubans access social media and the internet in a controlled environment? Is Instagram becoming the fastest route to fashion model fame? These are just some of the questions that will be explored as the results of more than 142 leading-edge research papers are introduced at ACM SIGCHI’s CSCW 2016, the Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Conference.

CSCW, to be held this year from February 27 to March 2, is the premier venue for presenting research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and networks. This year’s event will take place at the Hyatt Regency in downtown San Francisco and include workshops, panels, interactive posters, colloquia and demonstrations.

Simon Rogers, Data Editor with Google’s Trends Team, will raise tantalizing questions about how we might re-envision our use of data in his opening keynote presentation, “Beyond the Social Media Echo Chamber: Data Journalism with Search Data.” For a finale, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger will provide a behind-the-scenes look at the meteoric growth of a social media giant in his closing keynote, “How Design Decisions Have Shaped Instagram’s Community, and Vice Versa.”

“This year marks the 19th anniversary of the CSCW conference series,” explains General Conference Co-Chair Meredith Ringel Morris of Microsoft Research. “CSCW remains the premier venue for research on computer-mediated collaboration and social computing. The community’s contributions span from the technical (new systems and algorithms in these fields) to the qualitative (detailed evaluations of CSCW systems and ethnographic studies to understand user needs).”

"We are pleased to continue to reflect on past years’ papers through the Lasting Impact Award, presented this year to Paul Dourish and Victoria Bellotti for the CSCW 1992 paper, 'Awareness and Coordination in Shared Workspaces'", added General Conference Co-Chair Darren Gergle of Northwestern University. "We are also inaugurating a new Telepresence Initiative, through which members of our community facing travel challenges may attend the conference virtually via ten telepresence robots. It is an exciting addition to this year’s program as well, and one quite fitting for our community’s interests."

More than 1,500 unique authors from 45 countries submitted papers to be presented at the conference, from which only 25% of papers were chosen for inclusion.

Reflecting SIGCHI's emphasis on the interplay between computing and the social sciences, three papers chosen for an Honorable Mention explore the far-reaching impact of social media:

  • “Not at the Dinner Table: Parents’ and Children’s Perspectives on Family Technology Rules:” Authors Alexis Hiniker, Sarita Yardi Schoenbeck and Julie A. Kientz surveyed 249 parent-child pairs across 40 states to understand the types of technology rules (also known as restrictive mediation) they have established in their family and how effective those rules are perceived to be. They found that children (ages 10 - 17) are more likely to follow rules that constrain technology activities (e.g., no Snapchat) than rules that constrain technology use in certain contexts (e.g., no phone at the dinner table).

  • “Early Adopters of the Internet and Social Media in Cuba”: Although the Cuban government has tightly controlled information access for more than half a century, a small number of Cubans now have internet access at work. Authors Michaelanne Dye, Annie Antón and Amy S. Bruckman examine internet and social media use by Cuba’s early adopters.

  • “Style in the Age of Instagram: Predicting Success with the Fashion Industry Using Social Media”: To gain popularity, leading fashion brands seek to be represented by the top popular models. Because of its pervasive influence, many wonder whether social media determines who the fashion industry’s top models are. In this study, researchers Jaehyuk Park, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia and Emilio Ferrara combined data from a comprehensive online fashion database and the popular mobile image sharing platform Instagram. They applied a machine learning framework to predict the tenure of a cohort of new fashion models.

Three Best Papers to be awarded at CSCW 2016 include:

  • “You Get Who You Pay for: The Impact of Incentives on Participation Bias”: Designing effective incentives is a challenge across many social computing contexts, from attracting crowd workers to sustaining online contributions. However, one aspect of incentivizing that has been understudied is its impact on participation bias, as different incentives may attract different subsets of the population to participate. In their study, authors Gary Hsieh and Rafal Kocielnik found that a lottery reward attracted participants who held stronger openness to change values, while a charity reward attracted those with stronger self-transcendence orientation.

  • “Complex Decision-Making in Clinical Practice”: Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Systems are considered crucial for diagnosis, treatment and care of patients. However, practical benefits of such systems have been far below expectations. In their paper, authors Line Sils and Gunnar Ellingsen explore how the evolving interdependencies in organizational, clinical, political and behavioral terms influence the design and implementation of CDS systems.

  • “Convivial Decay: Entangled Lifetimes in a Geriatric Infrastructure”: Author Marisa Leavitt Cohn studies the specific case of an aging and obsolescent infrastructure supporting a space science mission to examine if we can observe common issues associated with aging infrastructures. She argues that active work goes into producing a convivial decay.

Visit http://confer.csail.mit.edu/cscw2016/schedule for a complete list of CSCW 2016 papers and a full schedule of activities. Credentialed full-time journalists or professional freelance journalists working on assignment for a major publication or outlet are welcome to attend the conference technical talks and poster sessions free of charge. Contact ACM Media Relations Representative Jim Ormond at (212) 626-0505 or email [email protected].

About CSCW

CSCW is the premier venue for presenting research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and networks. Bringing together top researchers and practitioners from academia and industry who are interested in the area of social computing, CSCW encompasses both the technical and social challenges encountered when supporting collaboration.

About SIGCHI

SIGCHI, the ACM Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), is the premier international society for professionals, academics and students who are interested in human-technology and human-computer interaction (HCI). SIGCHI serves as a forum for ideas on how people communicate and interact with computer systems. This interdisciplinary group of computer scientists, software engineers, psychologists, interaction designers, graphic designers, sociologists, and anthropologists is committed to designing useful, usable technology which has the potential to transform individual lives.

About ACM

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.

Contact:
Jim Ormond
212-626-0505
[email protected]

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