Presentation of "Design for Forgetting: Disposing of Digital Possessions After a Breakup" by Corina Sas and Steve Whittaker. For the class UX Prototyping.

1. Design for Forgetting:
Disposing of Digital
Possessions After a Breakup
Kangeun Lee
UX Prototyping

2. Table of Contents
• Core Research Ideas
• Research Questions
• Theoretical Background
• Method
• Results and Findings
• Design Implications
• Conclusion

3. Core Research Ideas
• Digital Possessions
o Personal digital artifacts acquired through daily activities (photos,
messages, music, videos) and stored across several digital spaces
(computers, phones, cameras)
o Extensions of self, symbolic meaning in appropriation and personalization
• Digital disposal and forgetting
o Most previous HCI work emphasize retention of relationships, forgetting
and deleting digital possessions received less attention than it needs
• Romantic Relationship Breakup
o Situation where people highly motivated to forget
o Relationship central to sense of identity, separation results in loss of sense
of self
o Observe people’s attitudes to digital possessions that are upsetting
reminders of past events

4. Research Questions
• What types of digital possessions are relevant to
romantic relationship dissolution? What functions do
such possessions serve in the breakup?
• What strategies do people use for managing
possessions? How do people enact disposal
practices?

5. Theoretical Background
• Life Transitions
o How significant events effect identity reconstruction
o Recall things supporting current identity, repress memories undermining it
o Death, divorce, premarital relationship dissolution -> theories of
attachment, stress, grief
o Bereavement: period of grief after loss, possessions of departed given
symbolic value, emphasize continuing bonds with deceased
o Using possessions prolongs grief while recalling fond memories alleviate it
o Divorce: have to process mixed emotions as well
o McAlexander: break free (discard), hold on(maintain married role),
dissolve ties(divide equally)
o Premarital relationship dissolvement: distress, depression, lack of self-
concept clarity , but also opportunity for self-growth
o Gifts symbolize important moments in relationship, difficult to get rid of

6. Theoretical Background
• Intentional Forgetting, Possessions and Sense of Self
o Forget/dispose what clashes with current desired identity, especially when
memories emotional and self-centered, and vice versa
o Follows creative process (craft, writing) as sense-making

7. Theoretical Background
• Divorce, Bereavement and Relationship Dissolution
in HCI
o Odom: filtering/annotating possessions by owners and surviving loved
ones, ‘letting go’ for honoring deceased and moving on, gradual
degradation of digital possessions
o Massimi & Baecker: repurpose digital artifacts into online memorials, the
self evolves during recovery from painful past
• Facebook
o Lack of context in interactions can cause doubts on fidelity, threaten
relationships
o Difficulty of changing relationship status, unfriending ex-partner, stalking
ex-partner’s profile, removing all extensive traces of relationship

8. Method
• Semi-structured interviews: asked 24 people (8 male
and 16 female) about experience of relationship
dissolution and role of possessions in moving on
• Generation Y (Ages 19-34), interested in love and
intimacy within friendships and romantic
relationships and friendly with multiple technologies
• 6 months to a year after breakup (significant points
in grief process)

9. Method
• Procedure
o Moving on: what helped/hindered this process?
o Show possessions most relevant to relationship and explore how they serve
as mementos and what memories they triggered
o Both digital and physical possessions discussed(what was
retained/disposed and why, feelings about process/decision)
• Analysis and Discussion
o Coding and thematic analysis from initial categories (types and roles of
possessions and strategies to deal with them) to more refined categories
(disposal practices and enactment)
o Extensive discussion with participants on themes

10. Results and Findings
• Types of Possessions
o Digital surpassed physical in number and diversity
o Vary in format and location, pervasive (on variety of devices, platforms,
applications)
o Digital: Photo collections (40%), SNS contacts (20%), music collections (7%),
relationship status on SNS (6%), email collections (5%), text messages (5%),
mobile phone contact (4%), videos (3%)
o Physical: romantic gifts (76%)birthday and Valentine cards (15%), perfect
gifts (9%)
• Roles and Critical Functions
o Communications: records of conversations, contact information,
relationship indicators that indicate intimacy and connection
o Evocative symbols (photos, videos) and emotional context (music)
o Meta-aspects: reflection on relationship and breakup, sense-making
(blogs, diaries, journals) and meta-data (reminders through photo tags
and folder names)

11. Results and Findings
• Limiting contact and transforming self-presentation
o Communication technologies and SNS made for continuous speedy contact
with only crude methods for breaking off relationship (Facebook)
o Other problems: deleting stored messages, effect of relationship presentation
on dividing friends’ loyalties
• Reducing evocative reminiscence
o Mixed reactions to photos and music
o Both positive and negative reminiscing
• Symbolic detachment
o Disposal symbolic of transition from old self (represented by possessions) to new
self after deleting
• Few truly shared digital possessions, art, gifts
o No complex negotiations around shared possessions (either do not have many
or because they are easily replicated)
o Digital gifts rare

12. Results and Findings
• Strategies for Disposal
o Deleters and Total Disposal (12)
o Immediately delete all digital possessions after breakup
o SNS
• Limited control over self-relevant material, untagging over deletion
• Immediate unfriending/blocking ex-partner’s access to profile
• Change relationship status to single
• Discontinue any form of contact through SNS (stalking, interaction)
• Active or passive engagement
o Physical possessions: throw away, neglect willfully, destruction, passing
onto others
o Forms of intentional forgetting
• Tackle good and bad memories
• Only tackle good memories (reduce guilt about bad ones)
o Good for short-term basis, separation from contact & reminders
o Impulsive, some deleters regret erasing memories

13. Results and Findings
• Strategies for Disposal
o Keepers and Retaining (8)
o Preserve all digital and physical possessions to reminisce
o SNS: Subtle online surveillance
o Concealment: store possessions in inaccessible places to reduce negative
impact, delete files from original location after backup,
o Emotional disinvestment rituals: strip symbolic meaning, reduce to
functional object
o Maintaining possessions tend to prolong grief process
o Need designs for better controlling reminiscing caused by digital
possessions
o Remember only good memories, idealizing relationship
o Tend to be those who were broken up with, first 6 months after breakup

14. Results and Findings
• Strategies for Disposal
o Selective Disposers and Discontinued Use with Later Curating (4)
o Stop using immediately(create space needed to move on), then selective
disposal of digital possessions (reminisce around valued group of
possessions)
o Discontinued use: keep accessibility while preventing reminiscing, as
opposed to concealment (can trigger reminiscing)
o SNS: Limited use for some time
o Separation ritual: complete disposal after period of deliberation
o Remember both good and bad memories
o Designs should be made to help active selection of valued possessions to
maintain, depends on type of attachment

15. Results and Findings
• Enacting Disposal Practices
o Difficult and Unending: vast collections of digital possessions across
multiple devices, applications, web-services and platforms
o Emotionally taxing, not exhaustive
o May come across unknown leftover digital traces
• Deleting and Renegotiating Ties in Social Networks
o Complicated: lack of control over digital traces, tension of
maintaining/deleting shared friends, reduced access to social world
o Relationship status problematic in explaining to acquaintances about
detailed breakup
o Digital accessibility allows for check up on other person – Good or bad

16. Results and Findings
• Time, Distance and Emotions Influence
o Duration
• Swift and cathartic (disposed by key press)
• Gradual: separation ritual, can lead to lengthened painful reminding
o Duration and reversibility important
o Location: physical distance (store with others) and social distance
(remove digital traces from SNS)
o Feelings: hurt/desire for control -> permanently dispose on impulse
o Strategy can directly affect feelings (‘keepers’ and prolonged grief)

17. Design Implications
• Automatic Harvesting of Pandora’s Box
o Automatically gather digital material about relationship through face
recognition, machine learning or entity extraction
o Allows possessions to be collected together without participants actively
having to gather them and go through painful reminders
o Collection = Pandora’s Box
• Don’t Touch!: Self Control in Intentional Forgetting
o Technologies for self-control: help manage emotions and control impulses
o Keepers: reduce temptation to re-engage with possessions through self-
administered mechanisms blocking direct access to Pandora’s box
o Choose availability regimes (deferred/infrequent access)
o Social support: choose friends as ‘gatekeepers’ to consult before seeing
evocative materials
o Engage with new SNS posts from friends rather than partner’s activity

18. Design Implications
• Active Selection of a Treasure Chest
o Treasure chest of valued items: a few highly valued digital possessions for
positive reminiscing
o Actively select valued materials during/after relationship
o Ex: photo viewings
• Crafting for Moving On
o Creative symbolic digital artifacts to process grief
o Slow transformation of Pandora’s box
o Make collages of possessions with visual techniques -> abstract
visualization
o Symbolic objects -> tangible artifacts make sounds for mood enhancing
o Closure, celebrating good, acknowledging bad, help move on

19. Design Implications
• Truly Shared Possessions
o SNS, individual rather than shared digital spaces, disposal problematic
o Relationship profile: simple extraction of relationship traces, vent about
relationship

20. Theoretical Implications
• Digital possessions also material and pervasive
o Directly integrated into lives of young people (SNS)
o Actively save sentimental digital possessions for reminiscing
o Evocativeness, visibility, pervasiveness, strong symbolic meaning -> real
physical possessions
• Ambivalent Emotions
o Retention of digital possessions not always positive
o Bereavement: emphasize maintaining ties with less destructive disposal
practices
o Demographics: participants young and in transitional stage of life, digital
possessions more strongly reflect relationships
o Role of possessions in life transitions, when people define something
ambivalent or confining

21. Theoretical Implications
• Intentional Forgetting
o Digital possessions that cause negative reminiscing need attention and
strategic disposal
o Must be examined further to understand characteristics and what
determines strategy choices
• Sharing and Digital Identity
o Dyadic relationship symbolism
o Problems of ownership (who changes/removes), authorship (who
generates), content (who it is about)

22. Conclusion
• Value of forgetting and complex disposal processes
• Design implications to better manage process
needed
• Goal is to turn Pandora’s Box into treasure chest of
memories, respond adaptively to relationship
breakup

23. Review
• Interesting idea to pursue forgetting memories and
disposing digital possessions rather than
remembering and retaining them
• Is it effective? Will it really help breakup?
• How to address all three types of breakup?
(Deleters, Keepers, Selective Disposers)