Eating alone, together: new forms of commensality

Grevet, C., Tang, A., and Mynatt, E. (2012). Eating alone, together: new forms of commensality. In GROUP '12: Proceedings of the 17th ACM international conference on Supporting group work, 103--106.

Acceptance: 25.5% - 24/94.

Abstract

Eating with others, or commensality, is an enjoyable activity that serves many important social functions; however, many individuals eat meals alone due to life circumstances, meaning that they miss out on these social benefits. We developed and deployed a simple technology probe providing social awareness around mealtimes to explore how social systems might help alleviate the loneliness of solitary dining. Our findings suggest that these systems can convey a sense of connectedness around a meal; further, our analysis revealed three themes relevant to systems of this type: that contextually-located peripheral awareness engenders connectedness; that such tools can foster a feeling of shared social presence, and that they can be a catalyst for other forms of communication around the meal. These findings suggest that ``remote commensality'' is not only possible, but that it may take on forms entirely different to that which we are accustomed.

Materials

PDF File (http://hcitang.org/papers/2012-group2012-eating-alone-together.pdf)
DOI (http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2389176.2389192)

Keywords

HCI, Social computing, Awareness, Contextual information, Design, Food, Mealtime

BibTeX

@inproceedings{grevet2012eating,
  year = {2012},
  type = {conference},
  title = {Eating alone, together: new forms of commensality},
  publisher = {ACM},
  pdfurl = {http://hcitang.org/papers/2012-group2012-eating-alone-together.pdf},
  pages = {103--106},
  location = {Sanibel Island, Florida, USA},
  keywords = {HCI, Social computing, Awareness, Contextual information, Design, Food,
Mealtime},
  isbn = {978-1-4503-1486-2},
  doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2389176.2389192},
  date-modified = {2014-01-11 20:45:46 +0000},
  booktitle = {GROUP '12: Proceedings of the 17th ACM international conference on
Supporting group work},
  author = {Grevet, Catherine and Tang, Anthony and Mynatt, Elizabeth},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  acceptance = {25.5% - 24/94},
  abstract = {Eating with others, or commensality, is an enjoyable activity that
serves many important social functions; however, many individuals eat meals
alone due to life circumstances, meaning that they miss out on these social
benefits. We developed and deployed a simple technology probe providing social
awareness around mealtimes to explore how social systems might help alleviate
the loneliness of solitary dining. Our findings suggest that these systems
can convey a sense of connectedness around a meal; further, our analysis revealed
three themes relevant to systems of this type: that contextually-located peripheral
awareness engenders connectedness; that such tools can foster a feeling of
shared social presence, and that they can be a catalyst for other forms of
communication around the meal. These findings suggest that ``remote commensality''
is not only possible, but that it may take on forms entirely different to that
which we are accustomed. },
}