NO-ONE-IS-HERE
MAPPING | SOCIOLOGY | DATA VISUALIZATION
DESIGNER | Tianyue ZHANG
Academic research(sociology): January-May 2018 Visualization and interaction design: Septemper-December 2018
NO-ONE-IS-HERE is a project designed to help hikikomori find their community and build social connection.
My goals are to understand the current social situation of hikikomori and their emotional needs, analysis the existing anonymous community on how it works and identify problems and opportunities, and design an experience that will help to overcome hikikomori’s social barriers, build their own community and finally go out to externial society.
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EXISTING SYSTEM
Hikikomori is a psychological condition which makes people shut themselves off from society, often staying in their houses for months on end. There are at least half a million of them in Japan. It was once thought of as a young person's condition, but sufferers are getting older and staying locked away for longer.
Typically:- spending most of the day and nearly every day confined to home,- marked and persistent avoidance of social situations, and social relationships,- social withdrawal symptoms causing significant functional impairment,
- duration of at least six months, and
- no apparent physical or mental etiology to account for the social withdrawal symptoms.
According to Bauman's theory, the consequences of a liquid modernity can be seen in contemporary approaches to self-identity. In liquid modernity, constructing a durable identity that coheres over time and space becomes increasingly impossible, according to Bauman. We have moved from a period where we understood ourselves as “pilgrims” in search of deeper meaning to one where we act as“tourists” in search of multiple but fleeting social experiences.
Based on this understanding,in this section, I try to understand how the current existing system looks like. It is mapped to seek for both potential problems and underestimated value of anonymous community.
I try to understand “HIKIKOMORI” and answer following questions:
How an anonymous community works?
How do people build identity and express emotion in it?
How bias happens?
I chose an existing anonymous community called “AC Anonymous Community (hereafter referred to as the community)” as my field. Its particularity is reflected in two aspects: First, unlike other communities with the same anonymity (such as the Douban), it is highly anonymized and closed. Users have no user name and avatar. Only the serial code consisting of random letters and numbers is used as the ID. If there is no private message function, in addition to posting, users cannot directly talk to one-to-one through private message chat. Need to pass the occasional “cookie" issue, the anonymous version by reading the user's cookie to identify whether it is eligible to post, if there is no cookie can not post, when the user changes a computer, the phone also needs to receive a new cookie, with A higher user access threshold. Second, unlike other virtual communities with high liquidity, this anonymous community has been around for more than a decade which has a stable user base. As a niche community and subculture gathering place, although there are not many users, it has always had a relatively stable user volume.
I acted like an anonymous community user, learned the rules in it, communited with other users. After that I interviewed 2 community users, recorded and catagrazied 200 posts. Based om my insights, I visualized everything into a map so as to show the inncer structure and mechanism of an anonymous community.
MAPPING | SOCIOLOGY | DATA VISUALIZATION
DESIGNER | Tianyue ZHANG
Academic research(sociology): January-May 2018 Visualization and interaction design: Septemper-December 2018
NO-ONE-IS-HERE is a project designed to help hikikomori find their community and build social connection.
My goals are to understand the current social situation of hikikomori and their emotional needs, analysis the existing anonymous community on how it works and identify problems and opportunities, and design an experience that will help to overcome hikikomori’s social barriers, build their own community and finally go out to externial society.
︎
EXISTING SYSTEM
Hikikomori is a psychological condition which makes people shut themselves off from society, often staying in their houses for months on end. There are at least half a million of them in Japan. It was once thought of as a young person's condition, but sufferers are getting older and staying locked away for longer.
Typically:- spending most of the day and nearly every day confined to home,- marked and persistent avoidance of social situations, and social relationships,- social withdrawal symptoms causing significant functional impairment,
- duration of at least six months, and
- no apparent physical or mental etiology to account for the social withdrawal symptoms.
According to Bauman's theory, the consequences of a liquid modernity can be seen in contemporary approaches to self-identity. In liquid modernity, constructing a durable identity that coheres over time and space becomes increasingly impossible, according to Bauman. We have moved from a period where we understood ourselves as “pilgrims” in search of deeper meaning to one where we act as“tourists” in search of multiple but fleeting social experiences.
Based on this understanding,in this section, I try to understand how the current existing system looks like. It is mapped to seek for both potential problems and underestimated value of anonymous community.
I try to understand “HIKIKOMORI” and answer following questions:
How an anonymous community works?
How do people build identity and express emotion in it?
How bias happens?
I chose an existing anonymous community called “AC Anonymous Community (hereafter referred to as the community)” as my field. Its particularity is reflected in two aspects: First, unlike other communities with the same anonymity (such as the Douban), it is highly anonymized and closed. Users have no user name and avatar. Only the serial code consisting of random letters and numbers is used as the ID. If there is no private message function, in addition to posting, users cannot directly talk to one-to-one through private message chat. Need to pass the occasional “cookie" issue, the anonymous version by reading the user's cookie to identify whether it is eligible to post, if there is no cookie can not post, when the user changes a computer, the phone also needs to receive a new cookie, with A higher user access threshold. Second, unlike other virtual communities with high liquidity, this anonymous community has been around for more than a decade which has a stable user base. As a niche community and subculture gathering place, although there are not many users, it has always had a relatively stable user volume.
I acted like an anonymous community user, learned the rules in it, communited with other users. After that I interviewed 2 community users, recorded and catagrazied 200 posts. Based om my insights, I visualized everything into a map so as to show the inncer structure and mechanism of an anonymous community.
PROTOTYPE
Interaction with AI
Orientation & administration:
AI give orientation to users by two ways. First, when users enter the community in the first time, she will tell instruction and warnings. Second, when users face any usage problem, they can ask for help by chatting with AI at any time. Also, AI will act as an administrator. Although it is an anonymous community, it is identity verified backstage, so any illegal action will be reported to the police and users will be punished in the real world. To ensure the healthy communication, the sensitive wordswill be banned.
Host & coordinator:
When a user firstly enter a chatroom, AI will introduce him/her to other users. AI will also help user to get involved in the conversation by methods, such as raising questions and @user. Also, when conflict happens, AI will act as a coordinator. But Ai won’t intervene too much. Most of time, AI just monitor the backstage data.
Counselor:
The data resource of AI includes the knowledge of psychology and sociology. AI collects and analysis the real dialogues which happens between psychological counselors and patients. AI can give basic psychological suggestions according to the conversation and action mode of users. Concerning of the security, AI won’t act like or substitute a real psychological professor.
Interaction with AI
Orientation & administration:
AI give orientation to users by two ways. First, when users enter the community in the first time, she will tell instruction and warnings. Second, when users face any usage problem, they can ask for help by chatting with AI at any time. Also, AI will act as an administrator. Although it is an anonymous community, it is identity verified backstage, so any illegal action will be reported to the police and users will be punished in the real world. To ensure the healthy communication, the sensitive wordswill be banned.
Host & coordinator:
When a user firstly enter a chatroom, AI will introduce him/her to other users. AI will also help user to get involved in the conversation by methods, such as raising questions and @user. Also, when conflict happens, AI will act as a coordinator. But Ai won’t intervene too much. Most of time, AI just monitor the backstage data.
Counselor:
The data resource of AI includes the knowledge of psychology and sociology. AI collects and analysis the real dialogues which happens between psychological counselors and patients. AI can give basic psychological suggestions according to the conversation and action mode of users. Concerning of the security, AI won’t act like or substitute a real psychological professor.
