Emerging over a decade ago, slow technology is a design philosophy aimed at supporting experiences of reflection through and on technology in everyday life. Recent research has suggested that slow technologies can open up new forms of interaction with digital content that support self-reflection and re-visitation of the past. However, little work has investigated people’s long-term interactions with systems that embody this design strategy. To investigate, I conducted a qualitative study with 31 participants to understand their long-term experiences with FutureMe—a slow technology that has been in use for over twelve years by more than one million people. FutureMe provided an unusually rare opportunity to investigate people’s long-term experiences with a system that embodies slow technology. Findings reveal that, despite its simplicity, FutureMe produced a range of outcomes—from profound reminiscence to unsettling encounters.
Publication
Odom, W. (2015). Understanding Long-term Interactions with a Slow Technology: An Investigation of Experiences with FutureMe. In proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Seoul, Korea. CHI ’15. ACM Press. (Local Copy, ACM Link)