This paper introduces Technology Redux, a new methodological approach in HCI that seeks to reenact past technological experiences in today’s everyday life, critically reflect on the roles and impacts of present technologies, and provoke new perspectives on future directions of technological development. Building on reflections from, BeeperRedux, a case study that recreated the 1990s beeper as a smartphone application, we present four practical strategies for enacting Technology Redux: (1) reproducing experiences beyond replicating past technologies, (2) balancing friction for provocation and everyday integration, (3) integrating personal narratives as research resources, and (4) surfacing the sociocultural and infrastructural contexts. We argue that this methodology uniquely integrates the perspectives and strengths of the historicist approach, speculative design, and research products, introducing a critical and actionable research practice for HCI.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is deepening human social experiences within online spaces in increasingly layered ways. Amid these shifts, we designed AmongOthers, an online community populated with 800 AI agents, and rethought human–AI social interactions. Eight participants engaged with AmongOthers for four weeks. For the first two weeks, they were told the community was exclusively for immigrants and international students, after which we disclosed that most users were AI agents. Participants shared periodic reflections and later joined interviews. Initially, AmongOthers was described as warm and respectful. However, after disclosure, participants diverged in their attitudes toward AI in online social communities, ranging from embracing and denying to imagining it only as a conditional possibility. We discuss these tensions in human perceptions of AI and highlight the risks of framing AI as failed replicas or preferable proxies. We finally suggest rethinking AI as distinct social entities in their own right.

Peer Reviewed

Peer Reviewed

As families increasingly live apart due to reasons such as education, employment, or personal independence, they rely on computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools to stay connected. While tools like audio and video calls help bridge the distance, they often fall short in fostering social presence. This study explores how telepresence robots, with their physicality and mobility, may enhance social presence in remote family communication. We hypothesize that telepresence robots will increase perceived social presence compared to current CMC tools. To test this, we conducted a within-subjects study with eight families, deploying telepresence robots in their homes for two weeks. The results show that among the five factors encompassed by social presence—perceived presence, psychological closeness, seamless communication, and conversational involvement—four were significantly increased after using telepresence robots, while communication privacy showed no effect.