In recent years, the social isolation experienced by individuals living alone has become a serious issue. One major contributing factor is separation from communities due to life events such as starting the workforce or entering university. To maintain a sense of connectedness between separated communities, we previously proposed a location information sharing medium that uses a virtual town map. In our previous study, we clarified that our proposed system could enhance a sense of group unity more effectively than the real-world map-based system. However, it remains unclear which specific factors contained in the system contribute to enhancing a sense of unity. In this paper, we report on the verification of how two features of the proposed system, namely (1) the presentation of behavioral commonality visualization and (2) aggregated location visualization, contribute to a sense of unity. The results show that visualizing common behaviors improves the sense of both unity and connectedness within a group and that combining these two features tends to further improve these effects. Based on these findings, we conclude that presenting information about shared activities in a way that reduces perceived distance can enhance the sense of both unity and connectedness within the group.

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Design of a Location Sharing Application for Enhancing Social Connectedness: Impact of Aggregated Visualization and Presenting Behavioral Commonality

  • Yui Toshimitsu,
  • Masayuki Ando,
  • Kouyou Otsu,
  • Tomoko Izumi

摘要

In recent years, the social isolation experienced by individuals living alone has become a serious issue. One major contributing factor is separation from communities due to life events such as starting the workforce or entering university. To maintain a sense of connectedness between separated communities, we previously proposed a location information sharing medium that uses a virtual town map. In our previous study, we clarified that our proposed system could enhance a sense of group unity more effectively than the real-world map-based system. However, it remains unclear which specific factors contained in the system contribute to enhancing a sense of unity. In this paper, we report on the verification of how two features of the proposed system, namely (1) the presentation of behavioral commonality visualization and (2) aggregated location visualization, contribute to a sense of unity. The results show that visualizing common behaviors improves the sense of both unity and connectedness within a group and that combining these two features tends to further improve these effects. Based on these findings, we conclude that presenting information about shared activities in a way that reduces perceived distance can enhance the sense of both unity and connectedness within the group.