Ambivalences in Digital Contraception: Designing for Mixed Feelings and Oscillating Relations

Zotero / D&S Group / Top-Level Items 2024-12-10

Item Type Conference Paper Author Joo Young Park Author Nadia Campo Woytuk Author Deepika Yadav Author Xuni Huang Author Rebeca Blanco Cardozo Author Marianela Ciolfi Felice Author Airi Lampinen Author Madeline Balaam URL https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563657.3596062 Series DIS '23 Place New York, NY, USA Publisher Association for Computing Machinery Pages 416–430 ISBN 978-1-4503-9893-0 Date July 10, 2023 DOI 10.1145/3563657.3596062 Accessed 2024-12-09 Library Catalog ACM Digital Library Abstract The ‘intimate horizons’ of algorithmic, self-tracking technologies have become increasingly important. These applications are no longer perceived as distant, instrumental entities, but offer a more affective and intimate experience. In this paper, we address the long-term experience of living with a digital contraception technology that utilizes self-tracking. We draw upon four design workshops with a total of 14 users of the app Natural Cycles to illustrate moments of ambivalent affects and oscillating relations. Based on our analysis, we concretize four dimensions of ambivalence in different scales and temporalities. We propose three strategies of designing with these unavoidable disruptions, conflicting feelings, and shifting relations to acknowledge users’ agentic engagements, nuanced dynamics of intimate self-tracking experiences, and users as embodied and affective beings. We contend that by attending to these existential ambivalences, digital contraceptive can become better configured to plural modes of life and long-term intimate relations that they engender. Proceedings Title Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference Short Title Ambivalences in Digital Contraception