Paper Reading #23

Comments
Shena Hoffmann
Chris Kam

Reference Information
Title -  Activity Awareness in Family-Based Healthy Living Online Social Networks
Authors -  Stephen Kimani, Schlomo Berkovsky, Greg Smith, Jill Freyne, Nilufar Bahaei, Dipak Bhandri
IUI 2010

Summary
     The basis of this paper deals with social networking. Health management was the main purpose of this idea. The authors wanted people to be more aware using family-oriented and social environments. This system has the capability to look at health activities, record and even track them. This is possible in both real life and on the social networking environment. After data is recorded, charts, graphs, and scorecards are available.Also, a diary is logged by each user as activities are completed.

The authors of this paper conducted a study with different families of four members. They were isolated into two groups, one not using the system and another did use it. The system allowed for more interaction with families. Also, they found it easier to learn about living healthy and also better access.   Users also liked the graphs and charts.




Discussion

   This paper was very interesting to me. I thought it was cool that they wanted to increase users' knowledge of health. People that sit on the computer all day will tend to have poor health due to lack of exercise. I also liked the idea of integrating this with social networking and family communication. Charts and graphs also seemed useful because some of this raw data may be hard to analyze. I feel like I would use this product or I would at least try it out