Our write-up can be found in this google doc!

 

Thanks,

Lauren Fratamico, Sebastian Kamau, Steve Myers, Gabriel Pereira

Homelessness – homelessness has become a huge issue in America. Approximately a half a percent of the US population is homeless, and the majority of those do not have jobs. Urban areas in many cities are becoming overrun by homeless populations, with them setting up tent camps that overtake city sidewalks. Work needs to be done to help these people return to society and find meaning in life. But at the same time, it would be helpful to further stigmatize the issue so that people are more discouraged from living this lifestyle and have a stronger desire to return to a non-homeless life.

Norms: As mentioned above, while people do look down on the homeless, they do not do it enough. It should be less of a socially accepted norm for people to be homeless. If people treated them with even less respect, then perhaps it would encourage homeless to not be okay with this lifestyle. Additionally, it should be the norm that no one gives them money while they are panhandling. This is a bad habit, and they may need more motivation to find a job that pays.

Market: One way to find meaning in life is to have a job that satisfies you and that can pay for your bills, the market can reward people for working in low-skill jobs, such as street sweeping. Additionally, there should be more of a market for training programs that have a stipend.

Law: To support the training programs and increased jobs for low skilled, laws need to be put in place to allocate money for this. People should be required to do work of some kind. Additionally, laws should be put in place to not allow people to sleep on the streets.

Code: One problem is that many homeless people sleep in publically available areas, such as benches. Benches could be redesigned to prevent sleeping.

 

Loneliness in Elderly – Loneliness is a crippling epidemic around the world. Globally, as much as 40% of people are estimated to experience loneliness at some point in their lives. It can impact all ages, ranging from small children to the elderly. Due to isolation, many people go days without human contact, with an estimated 25% of adults over 75 going a month without seeing another person. Programs need to be put in place to aid the elderly in interacting more with people.

Norms: It seems that Americans especially are bad at keeping constant contact with older relatives as many aging relatives live far apart from their younger family members. Elderly also try to stay as independent as possible, often living alone through old age. There needs to be more of a norm of communal societies, and a shift away from total independence. People can still maintain independence while living in a communal environment, and in a communal environment, they would be surrounded by others, which could facilitate more friendship formations.

Market: Oftentimes elderly care facilities are overly expensive. These costs need to be lowered so that more people can afford to live in group homes, getting the care they need while surrounded by people they can interact with.

Law: Laws should be put in place to limit the maximum cost of elderly care or have it subsidized for those that need it.

Code: More facilities like The Villages in Florida should be designed. This is a city where mainly elderly live that is designed to support activities they enjoy doing: dancing, listening to old music, driving around on golf carts, etc.

 

Loneliness in those who use internet forums to reach out – As mentioned above, loneliness is a crippling issue across the world. Face-to-face interactions are ideal for combating feelings of isolation, but this is not always possible due to shyness or medically-necessitated bed rest. As a result, many individuals turn to the internet to connect with others. We need to build technologies to surround these forums to help further connect people. For the purpose of this exercise, let’s suppose we build a system that shows people personal information about others, highlighting the things they have in common, so that they can interact with those that are more similar to them, increasing the chance that a positive interaction will occur, since network analysis theory predicts that they would be more likely to be friends in real life.

Norms: People may need to get over the shock factor that their personal information is available to others, even if this personal information is something that can be easily surmised from internet activity (eg hobbies based on other postings they have made online)

Law: Laws should be put in place to allow AI to access people’s posting history on the open web so that users can be modeled more intelligently, ie, allow it to scrape all postings that are publically made.

Market: For the information that is not public, let users allow the system to buy that information or access it freely with the user’s permission, again so that a more complete model can be made.

Code: The system would need to be designed to carefully highlight where the system is mining its personal information about you from. This would hopefully put people’s minds more at ease when using a tool like this.

Full disclosure – this is not a project I have worked on, but one that I want to develop something similar towards as I work on my master’s thesis.

Loneliness is an epidemic around the world. As much as 40% of the population is estimated to experience loneliness as some point in their lives. It can impact all ages, ranging from small children, who, for medical reasons, cannot attend school, to the elderly who no longer live with anyone. Of those over 75 who live alone, an estimated 25% have no human contact for days at a time. Even though it is mental, it can manifest physically, even causing heart problems. [1] To start to understand and address some of these issues the UK has even hired a Minister of Loneliness.

The solution developed by the Norwegian company No Isolation to work towards loneliness in the elderly is called KOMP. It’s a simplified skype-like system for them to connect with their younger family members. No Isolation’s heartwarming promotional video shows a lonely older man eating breakfast in his kitchen while his granddaughter is far away struggling to build a birdhouse. She calls her grandfather over KOMP and they are able to connect while he gives her tips to assemble the birdhouse. In addition to video calling, KOMP allows family members to send photos and videos to their elders, for them to view at their convenience, making the isolated people feel more present in their family members lives.

The design of the system is an important aspect to its success. The simplified interface, with just one button, makes it easy for those not well adapted to modern technology to operate. Many elderly even have trouble physically operating something like an iPad because the dryness of their fingertips makes it impossible for the touchscreen to recognize their finger’s presence.

Benefits of the KOMP system include making elderly or isolated family members feel more connected with those in their family. This is particularly important when either families live so far apart, as is often the case in the United States, or when a family member has been isolated, when, for example, they had to be hospitalized for medical reasons. As many elderly go days without human contact, KOMP starts to address that issue by making it easier for the tech-savvy family members to connect with the less-than-tech-savvy ones.

Potential downsides include that this is a virtual solution. It’s possible actual physical face-to-face interaction is more beneficial than virtual ones. Additionally, as the system needs to be operated with the push of a button, it’s possible that even if isolated family members love the device, their health could decline so much that they can no longer operate the device. As a result, the elderly is a challenging demographic to design for. Both due to physical limitations in operating a device and mental limitations understanding how the device works. However, it seems that KOMP is a promising step towards making loved ones feel more connected.

[1] Trapped in a bubble: an investigation into triggers for loneliness in the UK. Co-operatives UK, Red Cross. 2016.

I’m Lauren, and I’m from the Social Machines group in the Media Lab. What drew me to the Media Lab is the same thing that draws me to the tech and social change space.

Prior to coming here, I had been working at a startup. I loved the challenge of the work I was doing, but hated the capitalism of it. Why were we building a recommended system for products? I strived to work on projects that not only were technically challenging, but that also brought happiness to peoples’ lives. Perhaps someone seeing the perfect dress recommended to them would bring a brief smile, but it wasn’t the level I was hoping for.

Fast forward a few months later, and Deb Roy had reached out to interview me to join his lab in the Media Lab. I was thrilled to hear about the real-world impacts that his lab’s work was focused on.

As I’m thinking about what I want to do beyond the master’s. I’m wanting to do something even more human-touch than I currently am. Watching my grandmother grow old, virtually alone as her husband had died many years prior, and watching her go through phases of depression and loneliness in her last few years, I’m hoping to eventually work in the loneliness in elderly area. But I want to do so in a way that does not have unintended negative consequences. Looking forward to exploring this dream through out this class.