Nomads at Last?

Understanding the Impact of Mobile Technologies

on Human Spatial Behavior

Ecar Symposium 2010

Filippo Dal Fiore
Co-Head,
Co
Head Partners Relations and Technology Transfer,
Transfer MIT Senseable city lab:
lab:..::
::
Director and Co-Founder, Currentcity Foundation

Structure of the presentation

PART 1:
WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE COME FROM

PART 2
THE ISSUE: DIGITAL NOMADISM

PART 3
RESEARCH FINDINGS

WHO WE ARE:
The Senseable City Lab at M.I.T.

a new type
yp of p
planning?
g
people + space + technology

Di it l revolution:
Digital
l ti
human beings leave digital traces behind them

New observational frontiers:

on the communication behaviour of human beings (-- mobile phones --)

New observational frontiers

on the communication behaviour of human beings (-- internet --)

New observational frontiers:

on the photographic behaviour of human beings (-- Flickr --)

N
New
observational
b
ti
l frontiers
f
ti
on the internet/work behaviour of human beings (-- WiFi --)

more on Wi-Fi mapping

N
New
observational
b
ti
l frontiers:
f
ti
on the mobility behaviour of human beings (-- GPS, cameras, sensors --)

Digital Technology and Social Science Research:

a two-fold relationship

How does technology make us change

our behavior?

NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS

How can technology support us

in understanding how our
behavior has changed?

NEW RESEARCH TECNIQUES

THE ISSUE:
Digital Nomadism

Digital nomadism is driven by different rationales

planning

working

coordinating

being more efficient

doing business

experiencing

Digital nomadism is enabled by different technologies

Digital nomadism affects different types of workers

in different ways

Source: IDC

Digital nomadism affects our university campuses

THE RESEARCH FINDINGS:

How does ubiquitous
connectivity affect our daily
mobility?

The iterative process of empirical research

Circumscribe
an issue

Ask a new
question

Collect
and
interpret the data

WHY CARING?
REAL WORLD
EVIDENCE

ACADEMIC
VALUE

BUSINESS
COMMUNITY

RESEARCH PROCESS - (1) Sampling subjects

RESEARCH PROCESS - (2) Assessing hi-tech solutions for data collection

Wi-Fi Location Tag

Wi-Fi Log-files

Wi-Fi Sniffing SW

RESEARCH PROCESS - (3) Customizing hi-tech solutions for data

collection

RESEARCH PROCESS - (4) Collecting the data

RESEARCH PROCESS - (5) Generating hypotheses

Increasing efficiency in
the mobility behaviour:
circular trips instead of
d
dependency
d
on one
central workplace

Increasing number of
locations due to increased
efficiency and information

RESEARCH PROCESS - (6) Querying the data

Laptop Users
(N=38)

Occasional

Users

Non-users

(N=31)

(N=29)

Male (%)

47

39

55

Age (ave.)

26.2 (SD 3.32)

23.4 (SD 4.37)

23.2 (SD 4.17)

Years spent at MIT (ave.)

2.9 (SD 2.13)

2.8 (SD 1.49)

3.2 (SD 2.13)

Graduate (%)

82

53

57

PhDs (%)

45

25

37

S.Engineering (%)

45

40

54

Business School (%)

18

S.Humanities (%)

11

16

12

S.Architecture (%)

12

S.Science (%)

24

32

23

Living on campus (%)

47

55

48

Differences between clusters and within cluster 2

in terms of number of trips per day

Ave n of trips per day

Confidence interval, 95%

Laptop Users (188 data points)

6.23

+/-0.32

Occasional Users (155 dp)

5.75

+/-0.41

Non users (143 dp)

Non-users

5 57
5.57

+/ 0 45
+/-0.45

Occasional Users when with Laptop (83 dp)

6.39

+/-0.43

Occasional Users when w/o laptop (72 dp)

5.03

+/-0.68

All With laptop (271 dp)

6.28

+/-0.26

All Without laptop (215 dp)

5.39

+/-0.38

RESEARCH FINDINGS - (1) Descriptive statistics

Spatial behaviour of the 3 clusters
(% off th
the overall
ll time
ti
spentt in
i different
diff
t functional
f
ti
l locations)
l
ti
)
50.0
44.4 45.1

45.0
40.0

34.3

30.0

27.5

25.0
20 0
20.0

17 5
17.5

16.5

15.0

14.0
13.3

12.1

10.0

8.0 8.6 8.0

5.4

5.0

3.6 2.7
13
1 3 1.3
1.3

2.0 3.4

1 2 1.4 1.1
1.2
11

4.4

5.5
2.2 1.9

4.0 5.1
3.1
08
0.8

Functional location

O
th
er

O
ffC
am
pu
s

H
om
e

St
ud
en
M
tC
ee
en
tin
te
g
r
R
oo
m
/L
ou
ng
Lu
e
nc
hr
oo
m
/C
af

O
ffi
ce
/L
ab

Li
br
ar
y

C
om
pu
te
rL
ab

0.0
C
la
ss

%o
of time spent

35.0

Laptop Users (188 dp)

Occasional Users (155 dp)
Non users (143 dp)

RESEARCH FINDINGS - (1) Descriptive statistics

SPATIAL BEHAVIOUR WITH AND WITHOUT LAPTOP (SG2 spread)
50
45
Without Laptop
With Laptop

40
35
30
Allocation of time during the 5
25
workdays (% )
20
15
10
5
0
CLA

LIB

COMP

OFF

STU

MEET

Functional location

CAFE

HOME

OFF-C

OTHER

RESEARCH FINDINGS - (1) Descriptive statistics

Use of Wi-Fi, via the laptop, in different functional locations (sub-dataset: 271 data points).
T
Types
off functional
f
ti
l locations:
l
ti
Classes
Cl
(1)
(1), Library
Lib
(2),
(2) Computer
C
t Room
R
(3),
(3) Office/Lab
Offi /L b (4)
(4), St
Student
d t Centre
C t (5),
(5)
Meeting Room (6), Caf/Lunch Room (7), Home (8), Off-Campus (9), Other (10)

RESEARCH FINDINGS - (2) Inferential statistics

Regression 1
Regression 2
Age
Laptop
Today

Male

Dependent Variable: Number of trips per day

Graduate
Engineering

LiveinCam
Geographical
Condition

Motorized

YearsMIT
Rent

EmailsR
Digital
Activeness

Cellph

Office

NTrips

Comm
NClasses
Local
activeness

Predictor

Coefficient

Significance (t value)

(Constant)

5.343

4.801

LapToday

.217

4.647

Age

-.109

-1.659

Male

-.094

-2.069

Graduate

-.109

-1.364

YearMIT

-.041

-.630

Rent

-.054

-1.042

Office

.085
085

1 253
1.253

LiveonCampus

-.161

-3.043

Car

-.074

-1.460

NProjects

EmailsRec

-.038

-.757

Face2face

EmailsSent

.068

1.373

Equipm

A few independent variables stand out as statistically

significant predictors of a subjects travel behaviour
(t>|2|): most importantly laptop use (+), but also the
subjects sense of belonging (+) to the MIT
community, living on campus (-), number of classes
(+) taken in the semester and sex (+).

FrequentCellPhone

.008

.165

S
SenseComm
C

.280

5.273

Nclasses

.186

2.327
1.729

Nprojects

.086

Nface2face

-.070

-1.229

equip

.079

1.403

Summary statistics
Number

479

R Square

.167

Adjusted R Square

.137

Second Case Study: The Dutch Police

This is how we interpreted findings (1)

Rogers innovation diffusion theory (1995)
(1995), according to which five major
characteristics of a technology determine its acceptance:
- relative advantage over available tools
- compatibility, i.e. consistency with existing
social practices and norms among users
- complexity, i.e. its ease of use or learning
(i.e.
e the opportunity to try the
- trialability (i
technology before committing to using it)
y, i.e. the extent to which the
- observability,
benefits of the technology are plain to see

This is how we interpreted findings (2)

Going
G
i on to
t the
th role
l off individual
i di id l ffactors
t
iin ttechnology
h l
acceptance,
t
a few characteristics considered by Alavi and Joachimsthaler (1992)
may have played a crucial part in our case. In particular,
- cognitive styles
(cognitive problems experienced while accessing information through the PDA)

- user-situational variables
The elements of the environmental and social contexts of usage described
by Lee et al (2005), i.e. location, distraction, crowding, interaction, privacy.

Thank you for your attention!

Filippo Dal Fiore
dalfiore@mit edu
dalfiore@mit.edu
filippo@currentcity.org