An Kosurko and Tuire Oittinen
A group of enthusiastic social interaction scholars gathered in person at the University of Helsinki on May 13-14, 2024 to attend the second Technologized Social Interaction seminar. Early-career researchers together with Ph.D. students and experienced scholars discussed the current state of research on technologized social interaction from the perspectives of ethnomethodologically informed conversation analysis (EMCA) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)-cognate fields.
Hosted with thanks to the generosity of Keynote Speaker and Sociology Professor Ilkka Arminen, 43 participants attended from six countries including Finland, Sweden, Norway, UK, Canada, and Germany. Professor Arminen opened the event with a talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a disembodied interactional expert and set the tone for interesting discussion throughout the two days.
AI, imitation games, virtual reality, and online meetings were key technological topics studied in phenomena such as recruitment practices, second-language (L2) learning, and engagement/disengagement. Discussions were raised regarding non-human agency and interdisciplinarity in multiple fields of EMCA and HCI. Four parallel data sessions ran on both days for a total of eight one-hour sessions on a wide variety of topics in virtual reality, video-mediated crisis management, and telephone interpretation. Abstracts are still available for viewing on the website: https://blackbird-lute-5ex9.squarespace.com/abstracts.
Key Takeaways from the Workshop: “Conceptual and methodological challenges in the study of technologized interaction”
Participants were divided into four groups who each answered three questions with regard to four categories of technologized interaction:
1. Human-robot
2. Synchronous technology-mediated (including VR)
3. Asynchronous (social media, chatbots)
4. Technology supported (digital tools)
Questions 1: How do you describe the technology? 2. Does the particular technology have features or aspects that they would consider a resource, a member (with agency) or a tool?
Human-robot
Participants agreed that the robot technology could be considered a resource, tool, and/or member but that this is a dynamic status that can change even within one interaction. Robots are often staged as potential members and there is a dynamic relationship between robot as object and robot as agent in that what is relevant is dynamically changing all the time. The differentiation would depend on the local situation. For example, the robot can be resource (e.g., a chatbot), a tool, member (children playing with the robot; treating the robot as a member of the interaction), object (related to materiality), and/or intelligent agent (influence the course of action, progressivity), dependent on the situation and how people orient to the robot. Robots can be seen as a resource in situations where they, for example, assist humans (e.g., answering simple questions at public spaces). Robots can also be seen as a tool, for example, in factory settings, where robots and humans create products together.
Synchronous technology-mediated (including VR)
The technology is a tool and resource for mediating people’s interactions, allowing people to interact with each other remotely. These technologies are not members, but they can sometimes be referred to as if they have agency, e.g., “Zoom is updating”, “Zoom froze”, etc.
Asynchronous (social media, chatbots)
One group made an important distinction in challenging ideas of synchronous categorization of Chat GPT – which can be treated like a robot where there seems to be a dialogic exchange – so it is played with and potentially treated as a member, and can be presented as having some membership. Social media can be asynchronous or not. Social media and instant messages are resources and tools for mediating interaction, delivering (text-based) messages. AI chatbots can be also be seen as a resource or a tool when, e.g., asking them questions. Asynchronous medias may also have many multimodal aspects (e.g., the use of text, audio, emojis, GIFs, etc.).
Technology supported (digital tools)
Digital tools are considered resources and tools for learning. Interestingly, however, when they break they become the enemy. We attribute tools with blame/agency as they cause us to react/respond and we can treat them at intelligent agents when they don’t work. Question – is it the software or the tool? Is the designer implicated in the problem? These resources may have certain types of AI features in them which further help with the accomplishment of certain tasks (e.g., designer feature in Power Point). These are not necessarily members, but can be referred to as “agents” for example, when these digital tools do not work. Sometimes objects (e.g., smart phones) can support interaction, but also interact with the user (e.g., through notifications).
Whereas it was easier for participants to see robots as members, the matter was less straightforward with the other contexts (e.g., video-mediated and text-based interaction). Overall, many of the attendees raised context-specificity (and sensitivity) as the guiding force whenever working on data from these diverse technologized settings. One cannot presume that technologies have a certain role; instead, it is the evidence from moments the technology is actually part of and the carefully conducted analysis we do in EMCA that should substantiate this.
Methodological challenges in the study of technologized settings (e.g., data collection and analysis ).
A methodological challenge in research regarding human-robot interaction is that it depends on different contexts – behind scenes or in interaction. Regarding synchronous technology-mediated interactions (including VR), challenges are in the different perspectives – you can’t know who is looking at whom or how to get access to participant perspective (asymmetry). You also can’t trace the temporality or the space, as things happen on different devices. The main challenge with social media is an ethical one: how to get permission from all participants. Other aspects that were raised were interdisciplinarity and the practical side of research. In what ways can we develop our thinking and (ongoing and upcoming) research so that it would create opportunities for more synergy between EMCA and HCI and other fields? How could our findings inform technological design? How can we, in general, bring research closer to practice when doing social interaction research on technological environments? What could be the concrete ideas for this? The discussions will be continued in the third seminar which has been designed to take place in spring 2026.
Background History of the Technologized Interaction Seminar
This event was a continuation of a two-day seminar organized by the University of Oulu (funded by GenZ) in August 2022, where inspiring discussions sparked the establishment of a new international network and series of online data sessions with a special focus on technologies and interaction. The first seminar was built around the following questions: What are the emerging trends and possibilities the use of technologies in our daily lives has created for social interaction research? What theoretical, methodological and practical challenges may we face when conducting research on technologized settings, and how can we best address those challenges? From that seminar, the key topic that emerged was agency and whether or how technologies can be described and ascribed agency by human participants in interaction.