Combining Mobile Device Data and Other Research Information

Finally in this ECREA 2012 session, we move on to Anne Mette Thorhauge, whose interest is in using mobile technologies to collect data about people's everyday lives. This involves log data, but also combines it with other information, such as semi-structured interviews, diaries, audiovisual recordings, and many more, and may be used to map patterns of work, leisure, transport, and so on.

Our lives – and particularly, our mobile devices – leave traces which we may be aware of, but which leave important clues for understanding society. In studying these, we combine automatically generated data with sel-reported information; some of such information may also be generated by automated prompts delivered through the mobile devices themselves, in fact. This, then, is not only a question of quantitative and metadata, but of using the mobile device as a source of analysis in the research process.

Validation is important in any of this, of course – this goes for both the automatically generated and the individually created data, in fact, and both can be cross-referenced and cross-validated with each other. Both can contextualise each other, and this aids in the development of analytical frameworks which explore the relationships between observable patterns and the recurring situations and challenges in everyday life.

Ultimately, this explores the moral economy of these patterns, and the communication of data back to participants can influence their lifestyles in turn; this, then, also opens the door to a gamification of participant activities, especially as activities are connected with social media platforms.