Open Questions and Challenges

With all technological or digital devices come unintended consequences that are just out of our reach or control. For instance, we can’t really control what people talk about or say, how they respond or react, when using the tea set. As such, they may have varying degrees of “success” at letting go of whatever struggles or painful memories they have. Certain conversations might only cause them to fixate more on the past and negativity, instead of helping them move on. The person to whom you’re connected might say things you’re opposed to or disagree with, and conflict may arise in the conversation, leading to more stress and negative experiences. From our part, there is a degree of “trust” we need to place on the users of Connectivitea to use it for what it’s intended to achieve, which prompts us to ask to what extent this method of digitally-mediated forgetting, or ritual of letting go, can truly help a great majority of its users.

Through this tea set, we explore an alternative to how we connect to others around us and explore how we could incorporate technological objects in our daily lives slightly differently than we’re used to to help us with our personal, emotional struggles. However, would enabling physical, face-to-face interaction with someone or limiting social connections to only audio interactions be the best way to help people share negative moments with others as a way to let go of those painful memories? With physical interactions, one could more easily feel connected to another person due to the close physical proximity; seeing someone in person can give people a safer sense of trust in them, since, in a way, it “verifies” their existence and reality. In other words, not really knowing who you’re talking to and having technology limit how much you can see/know from a person could make people feel less comfortable to share things about themselves, especially if those things are very personal. And yet, having some degree of anonymity when talking about personal issues may also provide more safety and comfort. There is therefore a lot that can be explored with social therapeutic methods of letting go of painful memories.

There is also the possibility of having the users actually be able to see each other and connect beyond auditory communication. How would a digital screen projection change this dynamic? Are there other physical means that could enhance (or detract from) the experience of connecting to someone else through the sharing of personal negative memories? For instance, the project inFORM from MIT’s Tangible Media Group explores ways in which people can interact and display information three-dimensionally and physically. This expands the possibilities people have to interact with reality and make intangible things tangible. Further exploring this aspect of the social interaction in Connectivitea would be interesting to see how it could affect the way people let go of their negative experiences.