The Value of Unproductive Time with Personal Ubiquitous Technologies

We explored the phenomenon of smartphone use in Korea through a Grounded Theory study. The preliminary theory that emerged during our data analysis centered on the role of temporal experiences among young ‘tech-savvy’ Koreans. Within this focus, we theorized that Korean youths exploit smartphone features in form of practices that manipulate time perceptions in personally meaningful, yet effectively unproductive ways. Accordingly, we argue that personal ubiquitous computing, enabled through the smartphone, requires research approaches to time that question the prevalence of productivity. We support this notion of a non-functional approach to time that plays with time’s fluidity rather than its scheduled rigidity, by proposing the concept of Intrinsic Technology Integration as a temporal quality factor of personal ubiquitous technologies. Through this, we impli-cate an alternative research direction for time in HCI.