Information Technology Reference
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home through an intercom (like) system twice a
day provided social contact, reassurance and an
opportunity to exchange information. The warden
typically lived five minutes walk away and could
pop around if there was a problem or alert the
relevant caregivers.
about disclosure (Stanford, 2002). Participants
responding to this scenario (Little & Briggs,
2008) were concerned about increasing social
isolation, dehumanisation and bystander apathy
- surely there is no need to rush to the assistance
of someone who has had a fall if the paramedics
have already been alerted? What is the value of
the human word, thought or deed in that situation?
GlucoMON™ is an automated, long-range
wireless blood glucose data monitoring and
transmittal system. A child's blood glucose results
are automatically transmitted via email or SMS
to other family members. The promotional video
for this product shows a child being reminder
by an older friend to test her blood sugar levels.
The results are then transmitted to her mother's
mobile phone. The mother then calls her daugh-
ter's school and asks them to increase the amount
of snack food her child has at break time. What
would happen if the mother could not get through
to the school? Whilst such devices appear to do
the reassuring for us, knowing that the school had
developed a culture in which the child's diabetes
was an understood and accepted part of everyday
life would perhaps provide a broader form of
reassurance for parents?
CREATING A HEALTHY
CONNECTED SOCIETY?
Mobile and ubiquitous computing have huge
implications for healthcare. One can envisage
systems that act, not simply to store health infor-
mation, but to continuously monitor and com-
municate health status, coupled with intelligent
environments that can respond immediately to
this information. Restaurants and supermarkets
that work seamlessly with mobile applications to
check the food on offer against known allergies,
buildings that adjust temperature and lighting in
accordance with known medical conditions and
hospitals that are primed with up-to-date informa-
tion the moment the patient arrives.
Here is an excerpt from a scenario used by
Little & Briggs (2008) in their work on trust and
privacy issues in ubiquitous computing. Built into
Bob's PDA are a number of personalised agents
that can pass information seamlessly to relevant
recipients. As Bob is epileptic his health agent
monitors his health and can alert people if he
needs help. One lunchtime Bob trips and falls to
the ground. When he fails to respond to his PDA
alert the health agent takes over and contacts the
emergency services. The paramedics are able to
assess Bob and upload all his medical information
direct to the hospital via their hand held devices.
Meanwhile other agents built in to Bob's PDA take
control of his diary, cancelling appointments and
informing his wife of the situation.
This scenario highlights rapid communica-
tion of health status and health history between
interested parties but exchanging information in
this way raises important ethical implications
PUTTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
We do not oppose mobile technology in principle.
Mobile technology, like most technologies can be
used for good or bad. What we do oppose, how-
ever, is using 'human-computer interaction' as a
way of simply wrapping up purely commercial
motivations into a more acceptable human-looking
package. The phenomenon is familiar in all areas
of HCI, but the rapid growth of mobile technology
has made it all the more salient in this context.
One of the most traditional virtues in science
is its exact and precise use of concepts. We doubt,
therefore whether the term 'human computer in-
teraction' is precise enough to illustrate the range
of activities which fall under that heading. Instead
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