Paper Reading #9: Jogging Over a Distance Between Europe and Australia

References: Jogging Over a Distance Between Europe and Australia by Florian Mueller, Frank Vetere, Martin Gibbs, Darren Edge, Stefan Agamanolis, Jennifer Sheridan.  Published UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
Author Bios:  Florian Mueller is currently researching interactive technology as a Fullbright Visiting Scholar at Stanford University.  He conducted his PhD research in the Interactive Design group in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Melbourne.  Frank Vetere is a senior lecturer in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Melbourne.  His research interests are in HCI and Interaction Design and he works with colleagues in the Interaction Design Group to investigate the role and use of emerging Information and Communication Technologies.  Martin Gibbs is also a lecturer in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. He is currently investigating how people use a variety of interactive technologies (video games, community networks, mobile phones, etc.) for convivial and sociable purposes in a variety of situations.  Darren Edge is currently a researcher in the HCI group for Microsoft Research.  He spent seven years at the University of Cambridge, earning both an undergraduate degree and a PhD.  Stefan Agamanolis works mainly in the area of digital media and communication technologies and is currently Associate Director of the Rebecca D. Considine Research Institute at Akron Children's Hospital.  He holds an  MS and PhD degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as Bachelor of Arts degree in computer science from Oberlin College.  Jennifer Sheridan is currently the Senior User Experience Consultant and Director of User Experience at BigDog Interactive.  She holds a PhD in Computer Science from Lancaster University. 
Summary:
Hypothesis
Jogging and other physical activities can be made more enjoyable with the ability to communicate with other people anywhere in the world.
Methods
Participants engaged in jogging runs that lasted from 25 to 45 minutes, and communicated with a friend for the duration.  Afterwards participants were interviewed for up to two hours and asked to respond to very open-ended questions about their experience.  There were a total of 17 participants who provided data over a total of 14 runs.
Results
Initial findings indicated that Jogging Over a Distance can facilitate a social experience.  Joggers appreciated the function of volume change to indicate relative position but were also glad that the volume never diminished to a point that actually hindered communication.  Their results also agreed with idea that social presence can benefit from spatial properties, and the emergence of a virtual spatial environment contributed to the social aspect of the activity.
Contents
In this paper the authors state that jogging can be a good social activity, but that sometimes people who would like to jog and chat are restricted by their physical distance from each other.  The author notes that physical activity can provide an excellent means of bonding and developing relationships, so it would be useful for people to be able to communicate with each other while they are exercising.  It is important to note that the paper focuses more on how to communicate and make the exercise enjoyable, not on how to improve actual physical performance.
Discussion
I think the authors managed to achieve their goal of expanding the current knowledge of social interaction and how it can related to physical activity.  I found their results to be quite interesting, particularly the area where they discuss how the spatial aspect affects the interaction.  I think the paper is significant because it contributes to the growing (and very important) field of merging our technologies with physical activity.  It is becoming increasingly important to motivate people to get more exercise in daily life, and this kind of research is exactly what we need.  This particular product could even be expanded upon to encompass a more competitive aspect, as well as being applied to other activities.  It would be interesting, for example, to be able to talk to someone when you are skateboarding and practicing tricks.