Researching the Living Room Where people and devices converge

Background

Much of the news seems to be taken up with commentaries upon the ‘death of the family’, combined with the general fragmentation of society. Many such narratives are linked to the increasing proliferation of new technologies and devices, indeed some of the more extreme views seem to directly attribute break down in social behaviour and the ‘atomisation’ of society to new media adoption. Whether such positions ‘hold water’ is open to great debate. However at least within the home something interesting seems to be stirring in the Living Room. Rather than losing its social and symbolic importance it may be that the Living Room is increasing in significance and now represents the ‘space’ of confluence, the point where people and devices converge.

READ PROSPECTUS

Recent Teleconomy research (Devices 2002) highlighted that:

• 88% of the individuals surveyed met in the living room and 64% met there in the evening. No other space had greater importance.

• 63% accessed telephone fixed line services with 43% also accessing mobile phone services from the Living Room.

• The PC, having partially moved from the ‘nether’ regions of the home to the Living Room, has begun to move out again with consumer expectations that this move away from the central room will continue.

Whether Broadband will arrest this move and what its significance is for the status of the device remains to be discovered. The increasing emergence of iTV is already beginning to change behavioural modes developed over decades of viewing, the pace and extent of this change remains difficult to determine. It seems that the Living Room may well represent a ‘crucible’ of behaviours and devices, the study of which may well help us to understand many of the new emergent behaviours and device usages.

Methodology

The work was highly ethnographic and involves ‘fly on the wall’ video in addition to observation and depth interviews. Heavy emphasis was placed on an early period of fully ethnographic study followed by a secondary series of depth interviews to explore subjects rationalisations of observed behaviours.

15 Living Rooms were visited on several occasions over a two month period. The Living Rooms represent differing house formats i.e. flats, 2 bedroom, multi-social spaced etc. and differing domestic groupings, singles, partners, families with young/older children etc. in order to more fully evaluate the relationship between physical and social space in media/device adoption and usage.

Further Information
enquiries@teleconomy.com

Telephone: + 44 (0) 1524 382 000

© Teleconomy Group Plc 2002