Abstract
The recent burgeoning of the Internet of Things has seen the incorporation of digital sensors into many everyday objects, all of which collect data that can be compiled and used to analyze user behavior, ostensibly to improve their daily lives. However, these devices and the personal information they accumulate also pose significant security and privacy concerns. Sweet Dreams explores the darker side of ubiquitous computing and its implications for privacy through the use of sensors and environmental storytelling.
The project was inspired by the 2005 Young Adult novel, Uglies, which depicts a near future society of conformity controlled by government surveillance. Reflecting concerns voiced by interactivity designer Adam Greenfield in Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (2006), Sweet Dreams endeavors to raise awareness and provoke reflection on society’s eager adoption of ubiquitous computing. To this end, the project presents users with a simulation of a most intimate environment, the bedroom, and then invades their privacy using sensor data in an attempt to influence their actions.
