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Plastic Time: distraction devices in the gym
It is my hypothesis that people who use different "distraction devices", such as ipod, mp3 player, walkman, television, or even books/magazines, in the gym setting would have subjective time experiences that are different from people who do not use them. As defined in the prompt, "plastic time experiences could allow us to e interrupted with no cost to the experience," the use of these distraction devices in the gym does not take away what people go to the gym for, that is, to work out. And yet, to induce from the almost ubiquitous status of media technologies in the gym setting, the distraction devices may have a benefit to people who use them.
Even though it is advised in the prompt against using self-report as a method in the study of plastic time because people tend to explain their lives in terms of "busyness," it seems appropriate in this research because, while the "task" of time spent in the gym is to work out, the addition of the use of distraction devices is not task-oriented. Nevertheless, people use them for reasons. In order to investigate their perceptions without the subjective intervention of the researcher's preconception, researchers would hand out a sheet of open questions to gym goers as they come in, and have it returned as they leave. The open questions would include:
Do you use distraction devices at the gym? Why do you use them? What types of distraction devices do you use? What types do you actually prefer? And why? And so on.
The researcher would then classify the answers and test the self-reported motivations in using these devices. The focus groups will include gym goers who use cardio equipment, weights, skating, and track, and exclude those who do team sports and swimming for they are less likely to use distraction devices.
The test is done ideally through video recording of gym goers in the above mentioned included fields. The analysis of the recording video would vary, depending of the actually collected responses from the survey. If many respondents report that they feel "time goes faster" when using the distraction devices, researcher would expect to find, for example, those who use these devices would stay on the treadmills or ellipticals longer than those who do not use them. Or if the reports show increase of intensity in working out when listening to a certain type of music, then the recorded videos would be used to determine if there is a difference in, for example, the heart rate or perspiration level, between those who use distraction devices and those who do not.
Further analyses, other than motivations, can also be done. For example, the researcher can investigate the correlation between preferred distraction devices and their reported motivations. If the correlation is low, it indicates there are other factors in their choice of devices. For example, the researcher can observe from the video tapes the users' facial expressions when using a particular type of devices. Users may look bored when watching the public televisions because they cannot hear what is being said on it. Or users may appear to work more slowly when reading a section of a magazine that particularly intrigues her interest.
The final finding could potentially help administration of campus recreation department to determine what types of media technologies are better suited for the gym setting. It could perhaps also benefit companies of media technologies to decide what devices to be marketed and/or tailored particularly for the gym setting.
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another setting: email stations at the union
Email stations, positioned at random corners at the union, are designed to restrict users' free access to the Internet and allow access only to express mail site and other administrative sites provided by CITES. I think this limited-access-to-the-web design of these stations intends to limit the occupation time of each user. Instead of installing a software that automatically logs the user out after a certain period of time, this design, along with setting that requires the users to stand while using them, encourages on-the-go kind of user behaviors with these email stations. It is my hunch that people use these stations not because the urgency to check their emails (this might happen sometimes though), but because they happen to pass by these stations while they have some time to kill. Therefore, the use of the email stations may be exprienced by the users as non-goal-related plastic time.
With this research, I would also use video recording at every email stations from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. I choose video recording instead of installing some software to log the time spent per user is because these stations do not require user login, and so it would not specify the exact time use for an individual user. With the video recording, the researcher can then observe which adminstration cites the users go to, how long they usually stay at the station, the frequency of the use for each station, and the ebb and flow of the users across the time span of the day or the week.
My hypotheses are 1) the last ten minutes of each hour, from example, from 10:50 to 11:00, have a high use rate than the rest of the time during the hour (because this is when students have a little time to kill between classes); 2) express-mail site is mostly used while other administrative sites might not have been used at all; 3) some email stations are more frequently used than others because of their locations. The findings of this research can help CITES (if they are the one responsible for these decisions) make appropriate adjustments as to the design of the interface, number of the stations, and their locations.
beyond campus rec
I like this design a lot.
Can we make it a little more elegant with some of the lessons from the Webb and Lee books? If we take it for granted that we are skeptical about what people SAY about motivation, let's re-do this design to exclude more of that.
I'm not sure exactly how but let's try. You suggest that distraction may lead to a sense of time compression. I don't know if that is true or not, but I have had time compression experiences myself while at the gym, so it seems plausible enough to try. If you already have video recording set up at the gym, you can log how much time people spend doing different things. Then instead of asking them if they "feel" that "time goes faster," just ask them to report how many minutes they spent doing each activity and compare it to the actual time on the videotape.
You may have to take away their watches. And most people have a fixed amount of time at the gym so they may need to know (or already be sensitized to) how much time they spend there. However, it seems like you could get around that by asking about the time they spent doing each activity. Even if they know that they can only spend 30 minutes exercising, if they do several different things you still might be able to see time compression in the reports of each.
Your main comparison is technology to no technology-- an interesting one and very relevant.
The only major suggestion I have is that you set your sights pretty low in the last paragraph. I don't think anyone in our class aspires to administer campus rec departments (or market iPods). Can you broaden the anticipated conclusions of this study to say something more profound about media? time? humanity?
Nice work.
Christian
I suppose asking participants
I suppose asking participants how they "feel" about time compression may not accurately reflect their plastic time experience. Measuring the time use from the video tape in contrast to their self-report of time afterwards may reveal the discrepancy between them. This measure fits particularly well with uses of weight equipment, tracks, squash room and so on. Because I only do elipticals, I almost always feel the time ellapse on the equipment determines my use of it rather than the other way around. One way to counter this, besides taking the watches away from participants, may be to the area that shows time on any equipment. Then the contrast between video time measurement and self-report will work better.
If the finding is true that technology use changes our subjective perception about time, this may be an empirical supplement to the theorization of the fundamental arbitrariness of the measurement of "time." As Nietsche argues about the hegemony of time in especially Western civilization, which in turn structures our account of history as linear, great-men/event-centered, developmental, and hierarchical, a new conceptualization of time from grassroots, subjective, experiential, pluralist, and heterogenous accounts may serve in support of a lateral, spatialized, and Foucauldian view of history.
Well, I know I am jumping ahead in this argument quite a bit, but the connection is not totally out of stretch.