The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360

Stephanie Wong December 18, 2015

INTRODUCTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 RELATED WORK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 1.

FUTURE TECHNOLOGY

5

2.

MOBILE TELEPHONY

6

3.

FAMILY AWARENESS

6

STUDY METHODOLOGY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 1.

PARITICPANTS Bookmark not defined.

Error!

2.

METHOD

8

3.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

8

POSITIVE EXPERIENCES USING LIFE360 --------------------------------------------------------------- 9 1.

Awareness of Location -Enhanced feelings of safety and connectedness

9

2.

Awareness of Activity - Enhanced Privacy

10

3.

Awareness of Status - Enhanced Security

11

4.

Enhanced communication and coordination

12

CHALLENGES FACED BY PARTICIPANT’S IN USING LIFE360 ------------------------------------ 12 1.

New Users’ Routine and Mental Model Development

12

2.

Usability Cultural Customization

13

3.

Utility and Lack of Benefits

14

DISCUSSION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 LIMITATIONS AND GENERALIZABILITY -------------------------------------------------------------- 16 CONCLUSION ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 REFERENCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17 APPENDICES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19 1.

Interview Questions

19

1.1

Interviews for Mothers - Before using the mobile application --------------------------------- 19

1.2

Interviews for Mothers - After using the mobile application ----------------------------------- 19

1.3

Interviews for Late Teens - Before using the mobile application ------------------------------ 20

1.4

Interviews for Late Teens - After using the mobile application--------------------------------- 21

2.

Diary

21

2.1

Diary for Mothers

21

2.2

Diary for Late Teens

22

The Unlikely Bond: An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360.

ABSTRACT In this paper the study focuses on how mothers make use of technology such as mobile applications to ensure the safety, privacy and security of family members. With increasingly high crime rates against young children and adults in Bangalore (India), this study takes particular interest in exploring where mothers are taking proactive steps to protect their loved ones. A popular and internationally recognized mobile application called Life360 was chosen to track and monitor a family’s whereabouts. We conducted the study with two families having young adults age 20-25 years. Our findings included various success and challenges mothers and young adults experienced while using Life360 as a communication medium. A key factor that was highlighted as the main challenge and the root cause of all the other challenges was being textually nonliterate. Our findings showed that users who are highly educated also were textually nonliterate - which means lack of interest in reading and writing texts. This study had validated its existence. In addition, we also provided suggestions and directions for future implications. Based on these findings, we concluded that technology first needs to be accessible, understandable and interpretable before it can be adopted long term by all users. The study contributes to a different aspect of mother’s role in domestic computing which has not been covered before, i.e. young adults as participants and family awareness in the context of safety, privacy and security. Index Terms — HCI, Domestic Computing and Family Communications

INTRODUCTION It is now possible to track a family member’s locations with just a check-in button or find out where they have been throughout the day using a history button or simply call them when they send alert messages - all by using a location-based mobile application. One might find a mobile phone in remote villages of the developing world but the same is not true of the Internet (Desai, 2014). Such is the case for our study; we have selected Bangalore in India as it’s a good representation of a developing nation and is a hub for technological experiences (Ghosh, 2014). As Desai (2014) states that Bangalore is known as the home for professionals, artists, educationists and cultural hubs - it is the Electronic City, the city which embraces change, knowledge and is the second best place to live in India. However, with the growing incidents The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

in crime in both rural and urban cities in India - Bangalore is finding it difficult to cope with this current situation of rape cases of minor girls, the kidnapping of young students from colleges and the brutal molestation and harassment of working women on their way home (Ghosh, 2014). The uncertainty of the safety situation has made mothers and family members more anxious to look for avenues that allow proactive safety measures for women (Desai, 2014; Ghosh, 2014). To cater to this need for safety and security several mobile applications have been designed for tracking and connecting family members based on their location, such as I’m Shakti Nirbhaya: Be Fearless and VithU (Dass, 2014). Among them, Life360 launched in 2008 by Chris Hullus and Alex Haro has continued to be the most popular family-oriented private-network application with 50 million registered families. It has received numerous awards and fundings from Facebook and Google. As a service, Life360 provides users with four main features i.e. location sharing, creating a circle of family, bookmarking common places and sending alert messages. Location sharing allows the members of a circle to share their current location with each other at any time of the day. While circles are groups that a user can make based on his interaction with different people e.g. caregivers, extended family, carpooling friends etc (Wikipedia, 2015). Incorporated within these two features are the Check In and Panic Alert button that makes Life360 unique. Check In is a green button at the top of the screen that shares your current location and indicates to your circle that you’re safe and sound. While the Panic Alert is the red button at the top of the screen which indicates to your circle that you need help and are in danger. It sends the image of the location of danger with a complete address to all the members added in the emergency contacts, which appears in the notification and email accounts. The other features: places and premium are designed for commercial purposes and are addons that users have to pay to use. For instance in places; users can be alerted if they enter/exit a certain place that is infamous for its high rates of offence committed (Life360, 2012). The Premium account provides access to live advisor 24/7, emergency roadside assistance and stolen phone insurance, which are only available in the United States of America (Wikipedia, 2015). For this study, we chose to use Life360 because of its niche in locating and enhancing security for family members. It is awarded the “Gold Seal Winner at the Mom's Choice Awards” and recognized for providing mothers a “peace of mind” which is in alignment with our study objectives (Life360, 2012). There have been a number of studies that look into mothers using mobile phones and coordinating family activities with the younger children. Yet there is little understanding on how this role shifts when the younger children are grown up as young adults today. In the context of safety and security issues, the need to create awareness and maintain contact with each family member has been greatly realized. We focus on uncovering the challenges

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

and opportunities mothers and young adults face in using location-based mobile application and cite the major barriers in its adoption.

RELATED WORK A variety of research exists that shows mothers play a central role in administering the household work and childcare (Cowan, 1989; Martin, 1984), such as in information systems research, including, Human Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (Michael et al., 2001; Sellen et al.,2004). Yet, this past research does not explore how a mother’s role changes when the children are now young adults using mobile applications to communicate and coordinate their daily activities. To understand how present day technology affects mother’s behavior and how to design for such experiences is the focus of our study. We discuss our research in three key areas to inform and situate our study. The three areas are Human- Computer Interaction (HCI), Domestic Computing and Family Communication. These are further divided into three subsets which are explained further in this section below.

1. Future Technology Referring to past research, it emphasizes that smart homes for the future should focus on technology that are “designed to accommodate the rich and diverse ways” in which people organize their home (Neustaedter et al., 2006; Taylor et al., 2005). Family members should not be forced to accommodate technology into their lives but it should address to the practical needs of the user and be seamlessly integrated into their daily routines in a piece meal fashion. In most cases, mothers are the ones who take the lead in developing, sustaining and organizing a communication system to coordinate household and childcare activities. It is therefore crucial to take into account their firsthand experience as the lead of

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

the household and primary user of technology. This brings us to the next concept of how mobile phones are being used as the mainstream technology in the domestic computing.

2. Mobile Telephony Katz (2008) research highlights the different challenges in mobile telephony being adopted in the households. One of the aspects he highlights are mother’s playing a significant role in the development of the economy, the fulfillment of responsibility in household chores and upbringing of the children (Rakow & Navarro, 1992). Katz (2008) notes that in a patriarchal society, women at home are still dominated and dictated of their life choices and of minor issues like mobile phones to be purchased. His research further looks into the different type of users having difficulty adapting to the fast changing technology of mobile phones. His findings include users who are textual nonliterate; it means users who are literate but are not keen on reading or writing messages. They either rely on their memory to remember the steps to complete a task or ask others for help while using a phone. The use of memory is useful but not without an understanding especially when things go wrong and a problem needs to be solved immediately. The category of nonliterate users as identified by Katz (2008) is also found in the later stages of our study.

3. Family Awareness Every family has their own combination of synchronous (telephone, instant messaging) and asynchronous (email, text messaging) technologies but the ultimate goal is to communicate and coordinate with each other. Neustaedter et al., (2006) provides an overview of prominent patterns that exist in a family setting. My research will follow the same overview and analyze the patterns for awareness of location, activity and status that takes place in a family setting. These are discussed as follows: Awareness of location looks into how family members who are inhabitants of a particular home find comfort in acknowledging the detailed information of a cohabitant’s location. These include additional information of other locations they will be at on a particular day. This kind of knowledge helps the family members to coordinate the location for a family dinner or just to be aware of each other’s whereabouts at a particular location (Neustaedter et al., 2006). Awareness of activity looks into how family members want to know about each other’s daily activities. This includes knowing specifics about one’s schedule of work, school and social activities during the day. Work related details include general information like the time and day that one is working at rather than the knowledge of their professional appointments and meetings. Often this awareness of activities provides feelings of connectedness or assurance for all the family members (Neustaedter et al., 2006). The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

Awareness of status looks into how family members want to be aware each other’s current situation which is termed as status at that particular time. For instance parents have a strong tendency to make sure that things are going well for their children and they have what they need. This may be tied to the attribute of urgency and relevance, which means the urgent need of requiring information at a certain time. With the awareness of a family member’s status, other family members are able to provide support and help in case of need (Neustaedter et al., 2006). Together, the related research provides us a guidance to test if the location-based mobile application ‘Life360’ is either a success or a failure in integrating with the daily routines of the mothers and their late teens. Through our study we will gain an understanding of a mother’s role which can be used in the design space of Human Computer Interaction. This will also contribute to the study and design of safety measures for young adults. Lastly, it provides a new way to understand how awareness of family members can be used in different contexts which are safety, privacy and security by using a mobile application.

STUDY METHODOLOGY We conducted a qualitative study to understand how mothers and young adults use a location-based mobile application Life360 in their practical routine. The success and failure of Life360 has been analyzed grounded in the following research questions:   

What are the ways in which mothers and young adults make use of mobile phones to connect with each other? Does a location-based mobile application help to enable and mediate connected experiences amongst family members? What are the design factors that affect the way in which mothers and young adults make use of the location-based mobile application?

1. Participants We recruited a total of four members, two members per family, comprising of a mother and daughter. We used the snowball sampling method, also known as word-of- mouth method to recruit participants from families and friends (Creswell, 2005). The participant’s age ranged from 18- 25 years for the late teens and above 45 years for the mothers. The mothers were both working women, one owed a beauty salon and the other worked as a cleaner. The reason for choosing late teens are two folds: one reason is because they spend more time away from home i.e. either at university or at work-place. Secondly, they are allowed to carry smart-phone devices and are proficient in using them. We purposely chose the combination of mother and the late teens because we wanted to investigate the user experience from both the receiving and sending end. Another important selection we made was to select families with different literacy levels like highly educated and less-educated. By less-educated we mean users who are non-English The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

speakers. The rationale for this is to verify if their literacy level was being a barrier to their adaptability towards the mobile applications. At this stage, before conducting the field work, we could not conclude that the participants were textual nonliterate so it has not been categorized in the methodology as yet.

2. Method The users participated in a semi-structured interview that was divided into three phases: pre-interview, e- diary and then post-interview. For each group i.e. mothers and young adults, we designed two separate questionnaire and provided the participants with guidance on the use of each tool. With the less-educated group we provide them additional help in installing the application and with initial demonstration to get them started. We provided them the basic instructions verbally on Skype in Hindi to enable them to understand the objective of the study. The pre-interview was designed to capture the initial impression of the participants before using Life360. While the post- interview was conducted after they had used Life360 for two weeks. The purpose of post-interview is to understand the participant’s specific instances of use and why they used the mobile application Life360 the way they did. Both phases of interview took approximately forty to eight minutes each. After the participants completed the pre-interview they were asked to fill an e-diary explaining how the mobile application fitted into their routines. The diary method was chosen specifically to capture the user’s in-the-moment experience over the first two weeks of use. This period has been used in similar studies (Hillman, 012). Participants were asked to complete a minimum of two diary entry. The number of diaries and interviews from both the families were eight in total. The diary entry was created using the SFU Surrey tool and participants were asked to complete it each time they interacted with their family using the mobile application. These entries were allowed to be made on their phones immediately or users could record it later in the evening when they were at home. The diary captured information on the activity, date, location and their feedback on their likes or dislikes about the application. Participants were also provided their completed diary entries at the post-interview to allow them to elaborate and validate their view point, if any.

3. Data Collection and Analysis Our primary data collection was conducted through interviews and diary method. While our secondary data collection was gathered using newspaper articles, journals derived from the websites. The interviews were conducted on Skype and transcribed simultaneously to avoid any error. The entire data was analyzed using open, axial and selective coding, inspired from grounded theory. In round one we analyzed each user group individually; later both the groups were compared and contrasted for similarities and differences in their experiences using the framework highlighted in the related work. We closely studied the daily routines The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

and activities of the two groups of family members i.e. their working lifestyle, days they go to work and days they encounter unplanned scenarios like bad weather or lack of transport. By studying these activities and experiences, our coding revealed several patterns and responses of how mothers and late teens found success and challenges while using Life360 in their daily routines. Our result will focus on these two main sections.

PARTICIPANT’S SUCCESS USING LIFE360 Most participants found the use of life360 as a positive experience. They found it to efficient in locating the activities and current status of family members. We studied their experience pertaining to safety, privacy and security to determine If Life360 was successful.

1. Awareness of Location (Enhanced feelings of safety and connectedness) The awareness of location of family members using Life360 gave an immediate relief and an enhanced feeling of safety and connectedness for all the participants. We found that the smart-phone users were excited to experience the mobile application and were much more confident in integrating it into their daily routines. For example when we compared the experiences of participant D1 and M1, which is the highly educated group, they said they were “happy” as it allowed them to connect with their family members. D1 elaborates that Life360’s functionality was more noticeable when her mother traveled to longer distances away from home. As shown in the quote below, the continuous connectedness with her family gave her the sense of being in control to carry out the business as on any normal day. The unusual thing today about my routine is using life360 to connect with my mother from another city. Currently, my parents travelled to Chennai to attend a close friend’s wedding some 272 km away from Bangalore. I was able to manage my routine and business using life360 as I could keep track of their movement each time they checked-in into different places like hotels, train stations, wedding venue. As I am the person in-charge of the beauty salon in their absence I was happy to use life360 to coordinate with them virtually – D1, highly educated user. On the other hand, mothers in both the groups expressed their relief from the anxiety of not knowing whether their daughter has reached the workplace safely or not. For instance, participant M2 leaves early for work and her daughter leaves an hour later. Both of them are so busy during work that there is no time to call and confirm each other’s safety. By using the mobile application Life360, she felt it is difficult to use but it provided her a great sense of happiness when she received a notification of her daughter’s safety without any reminders.

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

It looks like it is fun to use and I like how it sends me notifications about my daughter as soon as I connect to the internet. So, I can see her last location even if she disconnects for the next hours. -M2, less educated These instances show that mobile applications and technology can play a significant role in providing the awareness of location to enhance the feeling of safety and connectedness for all the family members.

2. Awareness of Activity (Enhanced Privacy) The use of Life360 provided a new dimension to privacy. Privacy is normally extended by parents to the young adults and by using Life360 the privacy of the young adults was respected and granted. As can be seen in this occasion, where participant M2 was worried about D2’s whereabouts and upon finding out the current situation she did not interfere in her daughter’s private space with her friends. Since my daughter’s working hours have changed from 07: 30- 08:00 pm, we are more worried about them. Sometime, she and her colleagues go together for shopping after duty hours. Recently, they went to a big bazar for the Diwali Sale and did not inform me as she had learnt about it very late. I was quite worried but unlike last time this time around, I used this Life360 app with the help of my friend and found about her whereabouts. When I learnt that she Checked-In into Big Bazar, a common shopping point for festive sales, I was relieved and waited for her to come home. -M2, uneducated. By using the mobile application Life360, M2 was able to achieve two benefits. Firstly it helped her to respect her daughter’s privacy and secondly she was able to silently monitor her activities and locations in case of any emergency. This enhancement of privacy was also reciprocated by the young adults i.e. the daughters in this study. For instance, the participant D1 used Life360 to silently monitor her parent’s journey from Bangalore to Chennai. By just being aware of their activity and whereabouts, she was able to avoid intruding her parent’s vacation time and kept them away from being distracted by workrelated calls. By being aware of the activities, participant D1 recalls that she already acknowledged their safe arrival at Chennai before they called to inform her about it: Surprisingly, my parent’s return travel plans have been postponed to Sunday night instead of Sunday morning. I had hints about this change of plans, when my mother had checked in at her hotel instead of the Railway Station during the lunch hour. She used Life360 to Check-In and it sent me the notification. Later, they contacted us on phone and told us about their change of plans. – D1, educated The study revealed that both groups of family members considered Life360’s Check-In feature as their favorite and a positive learning experience. With busy schedules and slim time slots, family members expressed their need to keep updated with each other’s activities and to make sure everything is working smoothly. Such is the case with M1; she The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

used life360’s Check-In in feature and other advanced features to create awareness of her family member’s activities. My favourite aspect is the Check-in feature. I have been using it for over a week now and I learnt that I can request my circle members to check-in or even call them. I also learnt how make use of the information that comes when you go through the History button. It summarizes your family’s entire day (in and out) and the duration they stayed in that location. I also was able to check if my daughter opened the salon on time. –M1, educated.

3. Awareness of Status (Enhanced Security) The awareness of each other’s status (i.e. current situation) using Life360 has provided an enhanced security for the family members. The nature of the participant’s work and the natural rainy weather of Bangalore make the use of a mobile application very crucial. In our study, we have documented circumstances when young adults faced difficulties in traveling back home especially in a rainy season. These situations have exposed them to high security risk for being harassed. In order to tackle such difficult situations, young adults feel that the quickest way to cope is to send continuous status updates to their family. The following instance of the participant D2 depicts such a scenario, where informing her status update was also difficult to accomplish. “There are times, when I have to go home by myself. Normally, it is okay, but last week a guy started chasing me on my regular route. I tried to get rid of him by walking fast but he started following me. I quickly took out my phone to pretend I am talking to my mum. But, because I was scared my hands were trembling and I put the wrong code to unlock my phone. In such a situation, one cannot think of any escape. In just a few minutes, I struggled to unlock my phone, by that time he had come very close to harassing me and ran away before I could do anything.” - D2, less educated. Other participants also voiced the same concern for creating an awareness of security. They realized that sometimes calling for help from home may intimidate the person they are scared from and cause more problems for themselves. As in the case of participant D1, where she tried to create awareness of her security in a subtle manner, but made the person she was scared of more aware of her vulnerability. Whenever I take an auto-rickshaw I always call my mother and inform her about my plans. My mum wanted to know the vehicle number so I asked the driver and his reaction was: “Why do you want to know, do you want to complain?” I told him no; but the call I became more scared and felt threatened as I was anticipating the driver might do something wrong after feeling offended by my query. I felt very nervous after making the call to my mum. – D1, educated. Initially we did not find instances of Life360 being used to practically provide awareness of status in an emergency situation but the need and importance of it was desperately felt by The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

the participants. In the later stages both groups of family were able to address this scenario by using Life360’s Alert feature and they tried to integrate its use as frequently as possible. The positive user experience of Life360’s Alert feature is the appreciation of the notifications that appeared online and offline which created an enhanced awareness of security for young adults. The Alert Button is very well designed. It is BRIGHT and signifies DANGER. I like the fact that my family can trace the exact location where I am in when I am in danger. The alert messages are recorded in the history and in case they are offline at that hour, my alert messages will be seen whenever they check their inbox and notifications. –D1, educated.

4. Awareness of Remote Locations (Enhanced Security) In addition, to the enhancement of safety, privacy and security- participants also felt Life360 enhanced their sense of location. By just monitoring each other’s whereabouts, participants like D1 were able to learn remote areas she had not travelled. In the context of safety it is important, because it gives these young adults an advantage over the attackers of knowing which avenue to take and how much time it will take to take to reach safety. For Life360, this is a successful factor as it provides a proactive solution to the current situation of raping, kidnapping of young adults. “In comparison to the previous way of using phone calls I enjoyed this process of learning to use of Life360, mostly when my family was out of town. I found life360 very useful and informative on another account. While reading the location update of my parents, the distance and time taken to travel to Chennai is very useful to me, as I will be travelling to Chennai in 4 days’ time. Sitting here in Bangalore I am able to plan my trip and connect with my parents at the same time”. D1, educated

CHALLENGES FACED BY PARTICIPANT’S IN USING LIFE360 Just like any emerging technology there is always a learning curve and the users will face challenges while adapting to it. In this section we will explain some of the challenges the users experienced. Their experience is studied and categorized as:   

New Users’ Routine and Mental Model Development Usability Cultural Customization Utility and Lack of Benefits

1. New Users Routine and Mental Model Development Mental models often help to shape behavior and explain a person’s thoughts process on how things work (Forrester, 1971). We use this theory to understand the mental model that shapes the behavior of our users. Only after gathering data from the participants we could determine the kind of participants under study i.e. highly educated, less educated and the textual nonliterate users. What we discovered was except for the participant D1, all the remaining participants were textual nonliterate. M1 was highly educated, while M2 and D2 The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

were less educated. This was revealed while interviewing participant D2 to obtain her feedback on the use of Life360. She did not understand the basic task of setting up her circles because the labels and instructions were in English. It’s nice and initially I thought I could use it like the other social media application, for instance Facebook, Watsapp and FileShare. At first look, I didn’t understand the whole screen. Only after asking a few people who had used it then I was able to get to the next screen. – D2, uneducated The textual nonliterate participants believed that the use of Life360 will require both training and time as it is something new for them. Besides this, participant D2 mentions that her mother would like to use the application but she is limited because of financial conditions. In addition to being textual nonliterate there is a strong influence of the husband on the wives in their personal matters. This application will not work for my mum as it depends on our basic needs and what we can afford. My mother is used to the old way of making calls from her workplace because it helps her to quickly connect and communicate what she needs She doesn’t have to think. With this mobile application; she would have to ask my father how to use it, calculate the actual cost of usage and if my father is okay to use it then she will go ahead with it – D2, uneducated.

2. Usability Cultural Customization Participants of both groups had difficulty to install the mobile application and setup their profiles and circles. With exception to participant D1, all textual nonliterate users took longer time to initiate Life360 in their phones. As can be seen in the quote, participant D1 explains how being directed to the wrong windows after installation created confusion for her about the sign up process. When you receive a message that someone wants to add you as an emergency contact in their circle, Life360 takes you to Google play, even if you already had it installed it in your phone. It takes you around the messages, to the Google play store and then to the email inbox which makes it confusing to begin with. It gives you options like Complete Action Using “Chrome, Browser and Playstore. I already have it installed in my phone; it should take me to the app directly. – D1, highly educated. The textual nonliterate had great difficulty in understanding the interface of Life360, in particular to buttons like the Alert and crime. As per their interviews they mentioned that the Alert button would very useful to send their location to their family (in case they found themselves in a stranded place) and the Crime button would be useful in keeping them updated with the recent crime rate at a particular location. However, as the instructions were in English and the interface was not culturally customized they could not take much advantage of it, as can be seen in participant D1’s quote. The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

And the CRIME feature does not work here in my area. Though, Bangalore has made headlines across the globe for the rate of sexual harassment in the past one year but that info is yet not integrated. D1, educated.

3. Utility and Lack of Benefits Life360 uses internet connection to send notifications and alerts to family members both online and offline. This means participants will receive them on their email accounts and as well as on their SMS. For long term, this medium of communicating with family members is quite economical; however Life360 dependency on internet is not suitable for the participants we studied. For instance, when participants were asked to create a circle of family members a message had to be sent as an invite to join the circle, it was realized by the participants that these messages are charged a SMS rate. As shown in participant D2 statement- the process for the using Life360 did not seem like a long term benefit - as the cost of these messages compared to calling accumulated to a quantifiable value. I don’t think it is very useful for my every day routine, as it needs a lot of bytes and requires me to have an email address to send messages. I can make one, but my mother doesn’t use email address. This application sends notification each time on checking in. It’s not feasible for me. – D2, uneducated. Secondly, participants also added that they do not use sms in their routine to coordinate with their family members. The reason is that service providers and marketers promotes advertisement to a great extent that their message inbox are always full. As Life360 system is based on notifications, in the current scenario it is likely the message will not be detected.

DISCUSSION Our findings showed a range of user experience that comprised of both success and challenges faced while using the mobile application Life360. Here we discuss the reasons behind these findings and reflect back on our study to determine the future implications. 1. New Users’ Routine and Mental Model Development Initially both the families, highly educated and less educated liked the application’s novelty in communicating and coordinating with their family members. With its automatic notification and reminders, participants who were mothers found immediate relief in seeing their daughters reach their workplace safely However, over a few days, we could see a decline in their preference for mobile applications and choosing back the traditional method of communication i.e. phone calls. Mainly because they were “textual nonliterate” as ( Katz, 2008) highlighted. By assessing the diaries completed by participants M2 and D2, we were able to validate this notion. The textual nonliterate users took longer to read and they were able to remember The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

the steps taught, but when they came across a problem they were more likely to be confused, embarrassed and then frustrated. On experiencing these emotions the participants were encouraged to fall back to their traditional preference of using phone calls. Such can be seen in the case of participant M2, who is highly educated but she did not want to continue using Life360 and avoided trying it after a few trials. She expressed that she was more comfortable with the traditional way of calling and would like to continue doing so. This was a key factor that affected the overall adoption of Life360. Another contributing factor listed in our study for the slow adoption of using mobile application is the cultural aspect of women not being allowed to spend any disposable income without their husband’s permission. Although, this does resonate with (Katz, 2008) insight - but as participant M2 did not encounter the same issue, this is debatable and needs to be speculated for future studies. Based on the above discussion, it can be said that textually nonliterate users will have a longer learning curve and the current solutions are not feasible to help them adopt and integrate these new technologies into their routines. Usability Cultural Customization Our study also revealed the various usability and cultural aspects of using the mobile application Life360. As with most mobile applications, Life360 is also designed with a standard set of icons and English language as the instruction tool. As discussed in the challenges, that participants faced difficulty in understanding the interface as they could not associate icons like Crime and Alert with the appropriate functions and contextual meaning. Although, these icons are designed to assist with safety and security- they were not perceived to be useful or meaningful. Thus, this suggests that designs for future mobile application should keep the user’s culture in mind, which in-turn would lead to great design interfaces that assists in faster adoption of technology. Another challenge that was highlighted in this category was the need for participants to have email addresses. As per our observations, we noted this to be a hindrance as most mothers either do not own an email account or do not prefer communicating to family members via e-mails- which makes it difficult to use Life360. Although, email addresses are a great way to identify an individual, they are not the only alternative to verify identity. Thence, this suggests that with new devices and applications for technology, the process for sign up or adding more members to your circle should be made simpler and easier. 2. Utility and Lack of Benefits Overall the participants were pleased with the awareness of location Life360 provided. With a reliable internet connection, the group of M1 and D1 were very pleased as they were able to coordinate with each other on a daily basis from home to their workplace and from

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

Bangalore to Chennai. Also, through the continuous use of Life360 they had a better understanding of different location like time, distance which they found to be very useful. On the other side, the benefit to gain awareness of location is limited due to the poor internet and phone connections in different areas. The high dependency of Life360 on the Internet makes it challenging for lower-middle class users. Participant like M1, despite having a prepaid internet package also finds struggling with the number of bytes for a certain amount. While the other participants due to the high price rate of mobile data, use the service to connect only in emergency situation. Together, this can be understood that all mobile users do not necessarily have internet connection available at all times. Therefore, for the future implications we cannot outline a concrete plan to integrate technology into the mothers’ daily routines but we will provide relevant and simple suggestion which aims to help them achieve this objective. The use of Life360 can actually save cost, time and efforts when connecting and communicating with family members in the long-run because all the interaction is made online in a real-time fashion and is well integrated to be made available for all the members. However to face the challenge of additional cost and expense incurred for the use of Life360, the workplaces should provide their employees with internet connection to ensure their safety and security. Similar to the free-of- cost phone facility the mothers can use internet to keep track of all her children and connect with them whenever her duty starts or ends. This is less efforts consuming, she can go online and simply check online as many times a day about her family member whereabouts. In addition, the input method for the mobile devices could be developed to be voice based instead of textual based which means instead of reading and writing text messages the mothers can use their voice to achieve this tasks.

LIMITATIONS AND GENERALIZABILITY Our study has been conducted with several limitations which suggest room for research in this space. Firstly, the sample size for this study is relatively small in proportion to the entire population of the area which means India. By studying more participants we could learn in depth about the textual nonliterate attribute of the mothers. However with the given amount of limited time and resources, the study has managed to identify the root cause of the challenges that the mothers face in adapting to technology. Secondly, the subject and situation of the high crime rates in India could possibly include more details but the goal of our study is to explore and not resolve the problems. Therefore the study provides a reasonable window to understand the situation and role of technology in a developing state.

CONCLUSION In summary, our study discovers the aspect of how mothers play a key role in adopting technology to ensure their children’s safety, privacy and security. The study aims to understand the challenges that a mother face during this change and makes suggestions on The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

how to overcome them. A number of factors have been discussed that limit the use of Life360 application for both mothers and young adults such as cultural barriers, cost of the use of internet, their technical inability - but the biggest contributing factor is being textual nonliterate. We observed that textually nonliterate does not only to participants who are less educated, but it pertains to users who are even highly educated. In order to make a long term impact, the mobile application and all kinds of technological changes need be accessible, understandable and interpretable by the users themselves. As concluded in our study, we should analyze the challenges and opportunities experienced by the nonliterate users and design features based on their practical need. This study takes previous research to a step ahead by studying the aspect of a mother’s role in domestic computing i.e young adults as participants and family awareness in the context of safety, privacy and security.

REFERENCES 1) Azzwi,A.A. (2014). Ideal Technologies. In Experience with Technology: Dynamics of User Experience with Mobile Media Devices (pp. 94-100). Springer London. 2) Bargas-Avila, J.A. & Hornbaek.K. (1981). Old wine in new bottles or novel challenges: a critical analysis of empirical studies of user experience, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 3) Blythe, M. & Monk, A. (2002). Notes towards an ethnography of domestic technology, Proc. DIS '02, ACM Press. 4) Cowan, R. S. (1989).More Work for Mother. Free Association Books, London. 5) Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Merrill. 6) Dass, U. (2014). Best 10 Personal Safety Apps For Women [Android]. Hongkiat.com. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/android-personalsafety-women-apps/ 7) Desai, D. (2014). Bangalore is now 3rd ‘safe cities for women’ - The Times of India. The Times of India. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/lifestyle/people/Bangalore-is-now-3rd-safe-cities-for-women/articleshow/31662212.cms 8) Ghosh, D. (2014). Why Bangalore is not safe for women. Dailyo.in. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from http://www.dailyo.in/politics/why-bangalore-is-not-safe-forwomen/story/1/449.html 9) Forrester, J. (1970). Counterintuitive behavior of social systems. In Theory and Decision (pp. 109-140). Springer. 10) Fitchard, K. (2013). The world gets the geofencing bug: Life360’s family locator app explodes overseas. Gigaom.com. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from https://gigaom.com/2013/07/02/the-world-gets-the-geofencing-bug-life360s-familylocator-app-explodes-overseas/ The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

11) Frank Bentley. F, Tullio. J, Metcalf. C, Harry.D., & Massey.N.(2007). A time to glance: Studying the use of mobile ambient information, Applications Research Center Motorola Labs Schaumburg. 12) Hillman,S., Neustaedter C., Bowes, J.,& Antle, A. (2012). Soft trust and mCommerce shopping behaviours, Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services. 13) Katz, James E. (2008). Introduction. In J. E. Katz (Ed.), Handbook of mobile communication studies (12-22). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2 14) Lai, J. W., Vanno, L., Pearson, J.,Makowska, H., Benezra, K., Green, M., & Link, M. W. (2009). Life360: Usability of Mobile Devices for Time Use Surveys. Survey Practice, 3, 1 and The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) 64th Annual Conference. 15) Life360, (2012). Family Locating: Keep Your Family Safe and in Sync!. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from https://www.life360.com/blog/family-locating-keep-your-family-safe-and-insync/. 16) Life360, (2012). Life360 Stories - Keeping a Mother's Peace of Mind. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from https://www.life360.com/blog/life360-stories-keeping-a-mothers-peace-ofmind/ 17) Ling, R. and Haddon, L. (2001). Mobile Telephony, Mobility and the Coordination of Everyday Life, Paper presented at the Machine that Become Us Conference, Rutgers University 18) Martin, B. 'Mother Wouldn't Like It!': Housework as Magic*, Theory, Culture & Society, 2, 2 (1984), 19-35. 22. 19) Michael J. Covington , Wende Long , Srividhya Srinivasan , Anind K. Dev , Mustaque Ahamad , Gregory D. Abowd.(2001). Securing context-aware applications using environment roles, Proceedings of the sixth ACM symposium on Access control models and technologies, Chantilly, Virginia, USA 20) Neustaedter.C , Elliot. K. , & Greenberg.S . (2006). Interpersonal awareness in the domestic realm, Proceedings of the 18th Australia conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Design: Activities, Artefacts and Environments. 1 21) Rakow, L., & Navarro, V. (1992). Remote mothering and the parallel shift. 22) Saffer D. (2013). Designing Microinteractions. In Microinteraction (pp. 1-22). O'Reilly Media. 23) Sellen, A., Hyams, J., & Eardley, R. (2004). The everyday problems of working parents: Implications for new technologies, HP Labs, Bristol HPL-2004-37, 28. 24) Taylor, S.A and Swan.L.(2005). Artful Systems in the Home. CHI '05 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 3 25) Wikipedia,. (2015). Life360. Retrieved 17 December 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life360

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

APPENDICES

1. Interview Questions 1.1 Interviews for Mothers - Before using the mobile application Introduction Questions We are meeting to talk about your views, opinions and feelings about how you, as a mother connect with family members. To begin with, describe a typical day about your life? How many children do you have and what are their schedules? Transitional Questions There has been much talk about using mobile phones to connect with family members. In what ways do you coordinate and share daily routines with your family using mobile phones (e.g., calendars, text messaging, video chat, telephone, etc.). Also, what kind of mobile phone do you use? Core Questions How do you feel after connecting to family members using the medium? Were there any challenges or limitations you felt when you could not connect with them? Describe what is your impression about using mobile applications for connecting and coordinating with family members? Ending Questions Given everything we have discussed, what reasons do you think mobile applications are not being used most often or not at all? Is there any point you would like to comment on further? Summary We will be doing a one week study, where you will have to make diary entries when you interact with the mobile application. CUE: Here, I will summarize the points discussed above and also add the following line: Is my summary of our discussion accurate or are there important that I have not mentioned? 1.2 Interviews for Mothers - After using the mobile application Introduction Questions We are meeting to talk about your views, opinions and feelings about how you used the mobile application: Life360 to connect with your mother. Could you describe your experience about how you felt different about using location-based mobile application instead of the traditional way of connecting?

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

Transitional Questions With a new approach, tell me how were you integrating Life360 to your daily routine? Describe what you liked and disliked about your experience of connecting to your family members using Life360? Core Questions While using it, what do you feel were the benefits or tasks you enjoyed while using it? Did you experience any difficulties (e.g. design, technical, support) that may have any impact on your usage? Were there any issues of security or privacy you think needed addressing? Ending Question Given everything we have discussed would you like to continue to use it, If not why? Would you like to comment on any aspects that needs improvement in the Life360 mobile application? Summary CUE: Here, I will summarize the points discussed above here and add the following: Is my summary of our discussion accurate or are there important that I have not mentioned?

1.3 Interviews for Late Teens - Before using the mobile application Introduction Questions We are meeting to talk about your views, opinions and feelings about how you connect with your mother. To begin with, tell me about a typical day about your life? What is your schedule? Transitional Questions There has been much talk about using mobile phones to connect with family members. In what ways do you coordinate and share daily routines with your mother using mobile phones (e.g., calendars, text messaging, video chat, telephone, etc.). What kind of mobile phone do you use? Core Questions How do you feel after connecting to your mother using the medium? Were there any challenges or limitations you felt when you could not connect with them? Describe your impression of using location-based mobile applications for connecting and coordinating with family members? Ending Question

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

Given everything we have discussed, tell me your opinion about why mothers would make most use of the mobile applications or not at all? Is there any point you would like to comment on further? Summary We will be doing a one week study, where you will have to make diary entries when you interact with the mobile application. CUE: Here, I will summarize the points discussed above and also add the following line: Is my summary of our discussion accurate or are there important that I have not mentioned? 1.4 Interviews for Late Teens - After using the mobile application

Introduction Questions We are meeting to talk about your views, opinions and feelings about how you used the mobile application: Life360 to connect with your mother. Could you describe your experience about how you felt was different about using location-based mobile application instead of the traditional way of connecting? Transitional Questions Tell me how you were using to integrate Life360 to your daily routine? Describe what you liked and disliked about your experience of connecting to your mother using Life360? Core Questions While using it, what are the benefits or tasks you enjoyed while using it? Did you experience any difficulties (e.g. design, technical, support) that may have any impact on your usage? Were there any issues of security or privacy you believed needed addressing? Ending Question: Given everything we have discussed, what reasons do you think mothers will continue to use it or not? Would you like to comment on any aspects that needs improvement in the Life360 mobile application? Summary CUE: Here, I will summarize the points discussed above here and add the following: Is my summary of our discussion accurate or are there important that I have not mentioned?

2. Diary 2.1 Diary for Mothers (Minimum three times a week- depends on when you interact with the application)

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong

Participant Number: Age: Occupation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Number of Children: Gender: Location:

Describe your impression about the mobile applications ‘Life360’. Describe what did you use Life360 for and why? What worked well? Also, do let us know about your favorite aspects. What didn’t work well? Where do you use Life360; at home, work or elsewhere? Describe how did you feel after using Life360?

2.2 Diary for Late Teens (Minimum three times a week- depends on when you interact with the application)

Participant Number: Age: Occupation:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Gender: Location:

Describe your impression about the mobile applications ‘Life360’. Describe what did you use Life360 for and why? What worked well? Also, do let us know about your favorite aspects. What didn’t work well? Where do you use Life360; at home, work or elsewhere? Describe how did you feel after using Life360?

The Unlikely Bond. An exploratory study to discover how mothers connect & coordinate with family members using Life360 | Stephanie Wong