Over the past few generations, expectations of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have altered radically, but these dramatic changes have largely gone unnoticed. This intriguing book brings together the sociology of consumption and technology to investigate the evolution of these changes, as well the social meaning of the practices themselves. Homes, offices, domestic appliances and clothes play a crucial role in our lives, but not many of us question exactly how and why we perform so many daily rituals associated with them. Showers, heating, air-conditioning and clothes washing are simply accepted as part of our normal, everyday lives, but clearly this was not always the case. When did the daily shower become de rigueur? What effect has air conditioning had on the siesta at one time an integral part of Mediterranean life and culture? This book interrogates the meaning and supposed normality of these practices and draws disturbing conclusions. There is clear evidence supporting the view that routine consumption is controlled by conceptions of normality and profoundly shaped by cultural and economic forces. Shove maintains that habits are not just changing, but are changing in ways that imply escalating and standardizing patterns of consumption. This shrewd and engrossing analysis shows just how far the social meanings and practices of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have eluded us.

Comfort, cleanliness and conveniencethe social organization ofnormality

https://escholarship.org/content/qt4989v5f9/qt4989v5f9.pdf?t=nij0pz

Information strategies and energy conservation behavior: A meta-analysis of experimental studies from 1975 to 2012

Keeping energy visible? Exploring how householders interact with feedback from smart energy monitors in the longer term

Published research on smart homes and their users is growing exponentially, yet a clear understanding of who these users are and how they might use smart home technologies is missing from a field being overwhelmingly pushed by technology developers. Through a systematic analysis of peer-reviewed literature on smart homes and their users, this paper takes stock of the dominant research themes and the linkages and disconnects between them. Key findings within each of nine themes are analysed, grouped into three: (1) views of the smart home--functional, instrumental, socio-technical; (2) users and the use of the smart home--prospective users, interactions and decisions, using technologies in the home; and (3) challenges for realising the smart home--hardware and software, design, domestication. These themes are integrated into an organising framework for future research that identifies the presence or absence of cross-cutting relationships between different understandings of smart homes and their users. The usefulness of the organising framework is illustrated in relation to two major concerns--privacy and control--that have been narrowly interpreted to date, precluding deeper insights and potential solutions. Future research on smart homes and their users can benefit by exploring and developing cross-cutting relationships between the research themes identified.

Smart homes and their users: a systematic analysis and key challenges

This paper reviews the current body of empirical research on persuasive technologies 95 studies. In recent years, technology has been increasingly harnessed to persuade and motivate people to engage in various behaviors. This phenomenon has also attracted substantial scholarly interest over the last decade. This review examines the results, methods, measured behavioral and psychological outcomes, affordances in implemented persuasive systems, and domains of the studies in the current body of research on persuasive technologies. The reviewed studies have investigated diverse persuasive systems/designs, psychological factors, and behavioral outcomes. The results of the reviewed studies were categorized into fully positive, partially positive, and negative and/or no effects. This review provides an overview of the state of empirical research regarding persuasive technologies. The paper functions as a reference in positioning future research within the research stream of persuasive technologies in terms of the domain, the persuasive stimuli and the psychological and behavioral outcomes.

Do Persuasive Technologies Persuade? - A Review of Empirical Studies

Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS), e.g. energy monitors, are intermediary products that can visualize, manage, and/or monitor the energy use of other products or whole households. HEMS increasingly receive attention for their role in energy conservation in households. A literature review and a case study examine the mid-term effectiveness (more than 4 months) of HEMS. The case study presents the results of a 15-month pilot with a domestic energy monitor in the Netherlands. It explores the extent to which participants manage to sustain their initial electricity savings over time, with a special focus on the development of habitual energy-saving behaviour. The results show that the initial savings in electricity consumption of 7.8% after 4 months could not be sustained in the medium- to long-term. A second finding is that certain groups of people seem more receptive to energy-saving interventions than others. These participants quickly develop new habits and exhibit larger savings than other participants. Obviously, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for home energy monitors cannot be justified. For HEMS to be effective, a deeper understanding is needed that embraces social science, contextual factors, usability, and interaction design research.

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Home energy monitors : Impact over the medium-term

End-user experiences in nearly zero-energy houses

Beyond the demonstration project - The diffusion of environmental innovations in housing

Between 2008 and 2011, three different home energy management systems (HEMS)that give feedback on energy consumption were implemented in households in the Netherlands. Home energy management systems are defined as intermediary devices that can visualise, monitor and/or manage domestic gas and/or electricity consumption. Through a series of questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and usability tests, a wide range of knowledge was gathered on factors influencing the effectiveness of the three systems. The resulting insights were structured with the help of a conceptual model, which outlines the various interactions between users, energy monitors, and their social and physical environments. The insights provide a broad spectrum of factors to be considered for the successful design and implementation of home energy management systems. This paper aims to provoke an open discussion to ascertain the value of the different factors and further the development of effective and useful HEMS.

/pdf/insights-into-the-design-use-and-implementation-of-home-i3ioyo8lw6.pdf

Insights into the design, use and implementation of home energy management systems

In 2004, the Dutch National Sustainable Building Center set up a research project to investigate the widespread belief that sustainable building is more expensive than standard building practice. The results disproved this assumption and demonstrated that sustainable building can be financially profitable. However, the research also showed that these positive financial aspects are hardly ever used to promote sustainable building. SenterNovem initiated a new research project in order to recommend practical solutions for the identified issues. Besides the sustainable and ‘regular’ building sectors, the new project included other sectors in an effort to develop new insights. Focused on housing, this second project revealed the inevitability of a labeling system that covers all activities (‘one language’). It recommends giving top priority to the introduction of a labeling system that translates sustainability in housing into a manageable and controllable system. The system should clearly identify the level of sustainability of a specific house. To gain acceptance among consumers, the system would have to tie in with consumer needs. The idea that many financial incentives can be linked to this labeling system was affirmed in a separate workshop. Just before the second research project was completed, the Dutch housing corporation Oost Flevoland Woondiensten (OFW) introduced a labeling system for their entire stock related to the topics of energy and health. Nine months after the launch, an assessment of this labeling system confirmed the results of the theoretical research and the workshop.

J.D.M. (Anke) van Hal

Papers

Home energy monitors : Impact over the medium-term

End-user experiences in nearly zero-energy houses

Beyond the demonstration project - The diffusion of environmental innovations in housing

Insights into the design, use and implementation of home energy management systems

A labeling system as stepping stone for incentives related to the profitability of sustainable housing