Examining the impact of collaborative tagging on sensemaking in nutrition management

Abstract

Collaborative tagging mechanisms are integral to social computing applications in a variety of domains. Their expected benefits include simplified retrieval of digital content, as well as enhanced ability of a community to makes sense of the shared content. We examine the impact of collaborative tagging in context of nutrition management. In a controlled experiment we asked individuals to assess the nutritional value of meals based on photographic images and observed the impact of different types of tags and tagging mechanisms on individuals nutritional sensemaking. The results of the study show that tags enhance individuals' ability to remember the viewed meals. However, we found that some types of tags can be detrimental to sensemaking, rather than supporting it. These findings stress the importance of tagging vocabularies and suggest a need for expert moderation of community sensemaking.