Abstract
Smartphones enable an always-on connection to Social Network Services (SNS). A typical way of interacting with SNSs is to access them when the user has a suitable situation to check the status of her social networks or to write an update. One way to enhance the usage of SNSs is to have the service automatically push notifications about events to the smartphone user interface. However, there is no research on how users experience such SNS notifications. We present an explorative field study with 11 participants to assess how users experience mobile notifications compared to reading SNS content manually, initiated by the user. The participants first used Facebook for a month without notifications and then for a month with an application called Socially that sends frequent notifications about Facebook events to the userâ??s smartphone desktop. The participants who kept the notification feature on reported increased reading of Facebook. However, after a while, many were unwilling to receive the notifications, mainly because of lack of control. We report the qualitative findings on user experience, which reveal for example, that the use of mobile notifications decreases interest in Facebook. Notifications limit user control, and using Facebook feels more meaningful when accessed manually. Implications for design are discussed.
Highlights
Social Network Services (SNSs) are increasingly a part of people’s everyday lives
Many claimed that they use Facebook mainly to follow what their friends are doing or for private chatting and mailing, but they are passive in writing about their doings and whereabouts in the public status box
It can be tempting for designers to add automated features to social media applications
Summary
Social Network Services (SNSs) are increasingly a part of people’s everyday lives. They are used to maintain contact with acquaintances, both close ones and more distant ones [1]. Features of automation have been developed for SNSs, meaning that some tasks that were previously performed by the users are allocated to the SNS. Location sensors of a smartphone perform automatic “check-ins” on Foursquare [2]. This kind of automation reduces the need for users’ “manual” or user-initiated interaction with the service while supporting access to a broader set of information
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