Struggling with gift-giving obligations: when mobile messages are too laborious to reciprocate

Messaging with new media should be fun, but sometimes participating in conversations can become a burden for users due to the effort required. In this paper, examples of such situations are presented from a study on a multimedia program for mobile phones that can be used to create MMS-based comic strips. The examples show how the social system of gift-giving obligations, originally presented by anthropologist Marcel Mauss, still has a role in everyday social interaction of today. The identified problems give rise to a number of design implications to alleviate problems in gift-giving. Categories and Subject Descriptors H5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation (e.g., HCI)]: Group and Organization Interfaces

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: BCSHCI
• Authors: Antti Salovaara
• Keywords: Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, BCSHCI 2008, Everyday Social Interaction, Human Computer Interaction, MMS-based Comic Strips