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Abstract

There is a growing concern that smartphone usage in front of family or friends can be bothersome and even deteriorate relationships. In my thesis, I design solutions to improve co-located communication between partners. I start my exploration with a survey examining co-located smartphone usage among partners. Results show that people often feel frustrated when their partner uses a smartphone in front of them and are not fully aware of their partner’s smartphone activities when co-located. This motivated me to design a smartphone application, CoAware, for sharing smartphone activity-related information between partners. Results from a user study with couples show that CoAware has the potential to improve smartphone activity awareness among co-located partners. However, CoAware doesn’t fully grasp the communication facilitation aspect desired. Thus, I further explore ways to strengthen conversation between co-located couples by introducing a smartphone agent which is designed to interact with humans - like a human. With a user study, I investigate the effects of agent mediation on communication dynamics around co-located smartphone usage in couples. Results reveal that the agent helps motivate users to reduce smartphone usage and is beneficial in promoting co-located interactions.