Abstract

Las tecnologías wearables, como los smartwatches (relojes inteligentes), se han visto como una oportunidad para resolver problemas, a menudo relacionados con las personas mayores (55+), tales como manejo de emergencias, falta de actividad física, y soledad. Sin embargo poco se sabe sobre en qué medida tales personas apropiarían estos dispositivos. Dotamos a 11 personas mayores con relojes inteligentes y seguimos sus primeras experiencia principalmente con dos entrevistas. De acuerdo con los resultados, las experiencias previas con otras tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, y las actitudes positivas hacia la tecnología fueron fundamentales para una primera apropiación de la nueva tecnología, y para superar los primeros problemas. Además el uso estuvo muy relacionado con las expectativas y los hábitos personales. Los participantes usaron los relojes en forma similar a la descrita en estudios previos con adultos (18-64), que incluye el manejo de notificaciones y los sistemas para seguimiento deportivo. El reloj proveía a la mayoría de los participantes un status social (asociado a ser guay, snob o joven), y creaba oportunidades o preocupaciones sobre el estilo personal.Abstract While wearable technologies, such as smartwatches, are seen as an opportunity to solve some problems often related to older people (65+), e.g. emergencies, physical activity, or isolation, little is known about how older people would domesticate such new technologies. In this study we provided eleven older individuals with smartwatches and tracked their expectations and initial experiences using two interviews. According to our preliminary findings, previous experience with ICTs along with optimistic attitudes toward technology were key to initial domestication of the new technology and overcoming initial problems. Moreover, use was closely related to expectations and personal habits. Participants in this study used smartwatches in similar ways to to those described in previous studies with adults (18–64), including managing notifications and sports’ tracking. Additionally, users reported that the smartwatch provided a boost in social status (associated with attributes such as cool, snobbish, young) and created some fashion opportunities and/or concerns.

Abstract

We seek to quantify smartwatch use, and establish differences and similarities to smartphone use. Our analysis considers use traces from 307 users that include over 2.8 million notifications and 800,000 screen usage events, and we compare our findings to previous work that quantifies smartphone use. The results show that smartwatches are used more briefly and more frequently throughout the day, with half the sessions lasting less than 5 seconds. Interaction with notifications is similar across both types of devices, both in terms of response times and preferred application types. We also analyse the differences between our smartwatch dataset and a dataset aggregated from four previously conducted smartphone studies. The similarities and differences between smartwatch and smartphone use suggest effect on usage that go beyond differences in form factor.