Making Use of Serendipity: a New Direction for Pervasive Computing from a Sociological View

Everyday, a person can have numerous opportunities to connect with strangers or acquaintances around him/her. In this paper, we demonstrate how pervasive computing can help a person connect with others by initiating communication, and how (s)he can take advantage of these connections. We envision a future mobile information space (called the MobiSpace) that is constructed based on ad hoc collaborative networks, where nodes in these networks are capable of broadcasting messages using wireless medium. From a sociological perspective, we investigate relevant theories in the fields of sociology and social psychology. We discuss how these theories can help us formulate new mobile applications for social interaction and collaboration. Integrating these theories, we propose the SUIC model (Self Presentation-Uncertainty Reduction-Information Dissemination-Collaboration) for future mobile application development. In addition, we discuss what challenges new applications bring to the underlying system. Our work pioneers the application of pervasive computing to social interaction and initiation, and provides the research community a new direction for further mobile application development.