*This session is facilitated by Julian von Bargen, A.T. Kingsmith, Will Jaques *
About this session
Our interactive session has three components. First, we discuss the growing interest in measuring, collecting, and using data about human emotions. Second, we introduce the ACS, the Heaftfelt by EiQ Technologies, and how we propose to study emotional states, offline and on, as a crucial component of both the health of the internet and society. Finally, we demonstrate a number of the functions of the Heartfelt with our participants. We will bring three devices and encourage any of our participants interested in wearing the device. In the remaining time, we workshop potential applications including a browser addon that provides users with feedback on recommender systems and their potential exploitation of human emotion for the purposes of social, economic and political gain, to the detriment of Internet and social health.
Goals of this session
How long did you spend on Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitter, Netflix, or your online platform of choice today? How much did you enjoy that time? How much of it was enraging? Frustrating? Exciting? Chances are, the above companies have a better insight into these questions than you do. We want to fix this by decentralizing the data on your emotional experiences.
By introducing open, affordable, emotional insight technology and our broader project, the Affective Cartography Society (ACS) – a user-centred, bottom-up initiative that seeks to openly map human emotion – this session will equip participants with an increased awareness into how their emotions are ‘nudged’ towards particular outcomes and experiences. In doing so, it will empower people to reassert control over their own emotional profiles (or ‘biodata’) by generating insights into their experiences as they pass through digitally mediated spaces.