The Interview
In the gig economy—in which people earn income providing on-demand work, services, or goods—it’s easy to expect more people to work remotely and alone. So I began to wonder how we can build intimacy in the digital environment.
In my project, I speculate about the future workplace where we can observe each other’s physiological signals such as body language and subtle facial expressions. By doing this, I was also wondering if it could bring up a question of privacy intrusion and future surveillance tool.
Design Topic
Envisioning the Future
My Question
What if we could see other people’s physiological signals in a future digital workplace?
Future Scenario
Job Interview
Process
I created videos capturing various physiological signals that may occur during a job interview, such as hand gestures, eye-rolling, and lip movements when people feel nervous. Through this process, I aimed to envision how the future digital workplace might evolve while raising questions about potential privacy intrusion and online surveillance issues.
In my project, I speculate about the future workplace where we can observe each other’s physiological signals such as body language and subtle facial expressions. By doing this, I was also wondering if it could bring up a question of privacy intrusion and future surveillance tool.
Design Topic
Envisioning the Future
My Question
What if we could see other people’s physiological signals in a future digital workplace?
Future Scenario
Job Interview
Process
I created videos capturing various physiological signals that may occur during a job interview, such as hand gestures, eye-rolling, and lip movements when people feel nervous. Through this process, I aimed to envision how the future digital workplace might evolve while raising questions about potential privacy intrusion and online surveillance issues.
In the gig economy sector, the concept of regular employment will decline, while new forms of work, such as temporary contracts and online platform jobs, will rise. This shift will inevitably lead to less in-person human interaction. Since humans are inherently social beings, this could result in a sense of isolation for many individuals, as numerous studies have shown. I believe this to be one of the key challenges of remote work (link1, link2, link3, link4). Even as online meetings become more common, they can’t always capture the nuances of nonverbal communication and in-person interactions.
This made me curious about how we can achieve in-depth non-verbal communication in a digital environment. Research by Jeremy Bailenson and his team shows that physiological signals can serve as a crucial communicative tool for enhancing emotional experiences between people interacting with computers. Their research also revealed that visualizing pulse data can foster greater intimacy between individuals. They concluded that “heartbeat communication is a promising way to increase intimacy.” (link)
This result led me to wonder if online communication could go beyond simply looking at each other’s faces. Could sharing personal data become a new way of fostering emotional bonds in future digital settings? And if we gain access to others' physiological signals, what ethical, social, or privacy-related issues might arise?
This result led me to wonder if online communication could go beyond simply looking at each other’s faces. Could sharing personal data become a new way of fostering emotional bonds in future digital settings? And if we gain access to others' physiological signals, what ethical, social, or privacy-related issues might arise?