rachel schoenau assignment #10

Last Tuesday’s hybrid configuration video conference session we had with Eric, Jerry, and Mr. and Mrs. Olson was a great experience, during which students got to experiment with a very popular collaboration technology and realize its major flaws or possible areas for improvement. In terms of the social-technical gap, the video conference session went relatively poorly in my opinion. Ackerman’s social technical gap is important to consider as technology becomes more advanced. Because technical systems are rigid, binary, and algorithmic, they are not perfect at supporting human interaction which is flexible, nuanced and heuristic. Communicating through vide, using programs such as IOCOM, is as about as close as we can get to face-to-face communication as of now.

The social-technical gap seemed somewhat small for only few reasons. First, the lag time between when the sound was made and when the sound was received was fairly short. When we asked Jerry if he was still there, his response was pretty prompt. In addition, the lag time between when someone moved and when the movement was recorded was pretty short too. The sound was very clear; it sounded almost better than if one was on the phone.

However, the social-technical gap seemed very large for numerous reasons. First, the resolution was not very clear. I can only imagine how unclear the video images were from Eric, Jerry, and Mr. and Mrs. Olson’s perspective, with so many people in one room when the camera was very zoomed out. Another issue occurred when members of our class forgot to push the microphone button and the people on the receiving end could not hear. This delayed communication. Another reason why the technical gap seemed large was because video chatting does not support nuanced behavior. For example, when we first called the Olsons and their computer automatically answered the call even though they were at their desk. The fact that a computer cannot be on if a person is not at their desk does not support nuanced behavior. Another nuanced behavior that is not supported is adding subtle commentary. For example, someone cannot contribute a one word comment while someone else is speaking on the microphone. Finally, the cameras were not supportive of eye contact, which is one of the most important social cues. The Olsons could have thought we were being disrespectful because we were looking off to a different angle, instead of looking right at them.