TY - GEN
T1 - Social networking sites as platforms to persuade behaviour change in domestic energy consumption
AU - Foster, Derek
AU - Blythe, Mark
AU - Lawson, Shaun
AU - Doughty, Mark
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - This paper describes a pilot investigation into the use of the social networking site Facebook as a platform for persuasive applications. The application domain is behaviour change in domestic energy consumption and the study focuses on determining peoples' attitudes towards the hypothetical coupling of the consumer product Wattson, which can monitor domestic electricity usage, to a Facebook application termed Watts Up. The Facebook application presents visualisations of users' own electricity consumption as well as that of their friends. Users' attitudes towards this notion were accumulated and analysed using grounded theory. Some user indications revealed negative opinions about the concept based, for instance, around privacy and confusion; however the balance of opinion appeared to favour the underlying idea that revealing other people's energy usage data would lead to competition and peer influence to reduce energy consumption.
AB - This paper describes a pilot investigation into the use of the social networking site Facebook as a platform for persuasive applications. The application domain is behaviour change in domestic energy consumption and the study focuses on determining peoples' attitudes towards the hypothetical coupling of the consumer product Wattson, which can monitor domestic electricity usage, to a Facebook application termed Watts Up. The Facebook application presents visualisations of users' own electricity consumption as well as that of their friends. Users' attitudes towards this notion were accumulated and analysed using grounded theory. Some user indications revealed negative opinions about the concept based, for instance, around privacy and confusion; however the balance of opinion appeared to favour the underlying idea that revealing other people's energy usage data would lead to competition and peer influence to reduce energy consumption.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84859076211&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84859076211
SN - 1902956850
SN - 9781902956855
T3 - Adaptive and Emergent Behaviour and Complex Systems - Proceedings of the 23rd Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, AISB 2009
SP - 22
EP - 27
BT - Adaptive and Emergent Behaviour and Complex Systems - Proceedings of the 23rd Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, AISB 2009
T2 - 23rd Convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, AISB 2009
Y2 - 6 April 2009 through 9 April 2009
ER -
