"It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting

A myriad of digital artifacts are routinely exchanged online. While previous studies suggest that these are sometimes considered to be gifts, CSCW has largely overlooked explicit digital gifting where people deliberately choose to give digital media as gifts. We present an interview study that syste...

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Main Authors: Kwon, Hyosun, Koleva, Boriana, Schnädelbach, Holger, Benford, Steve
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/38096/
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author Kwon, Hyosun
Koleva, Boriana
Schnädelbach, Holger
Benford, Steve
author_facet Kwon, Hyosun
Koleva, Boriana
Schnädelbach, Holger
Benford, Steve
author_sort Kwon, Hyosun
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description A myriad of digital artifacts are routinely exchanged online. While previous studies suggest that these are sometimes considered to be gifts, CSCW has largely overlooked explicit digital gifting where people deliberately choose to give digital media as gifts. We present an interview study that systematically analyzes the nature of digital gifting in comparison to conventional physical gifting. A five-stage gift exchange model, synthesized from the literature, frames this study. Findings reveal that there are distinctive gaps in people’s engagement with the digital gifting process compared to physical gifting. Participants’ accounts show how digital gifts often involve less labor, are sometimes not perceived as gifts by the recipient and are rarely reflected on and reciprocated. We conclude by drawing out design implications for digital gifting services and rituals.
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format Conference or Workshop Item
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:34:37Z
publishDate 2017
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spelling nottingham-380962020-05-04T18:32:35Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/38096/ "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting Kwon, Hyosun Koleva, Boriana Schnädelbach, Holger Benford, Steve A myriad of digital artifacts are routinely exchanged online. While previous studies suggest that these are sometimes considered to be gifts, CSCW has largely overlooked explicit digital gifting where people deliberately choose to give digital media as gifts. We present an interview study that systematically analyzes the nature of digital gifting in comparison to conventional physical gifting. A five-stage gift exchange model, synthesized from the literature, frames this study. Findings reveal that there are distinctive gaps in people’s engagement with the digital gifting process compared to physical gifting. Participants’ accounts show how digital gifts often involve less labor, are sometimes not perceived as gifts by the recipient and are rarely reflected on and reciprocated. We conclude by drawing out design implications for digital gifting services and rituals. 2017-03-01 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed Kwon, Hyosun, Koleva, Boriana, Schnädelbach, Holger and Benford, Steve (2017) "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting. In: 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2017), 25 Feb-01 Mar 2017, Portland, Oregon, USA. Digital gift Framework Gift exchange Interaction design Rituals Gifting process http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2998181.2998225
spellingShingle Digital gift
Framework
Gift exchange
Interaction design
Rituals
Gifting process
Kwon, Hyosun
Koleva, Boriana
Schnädelbach, Holger
Benford, Steve
"It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
title "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
title_full "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
title_fullStr "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
title_full_unstemmed "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
title_short "It's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
title_sort "it's not yet a gift": understanding digital gifting
topic Digital gift
Framework
Gift exchange
Interaction design
Rituals
Gifting process
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/38096/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/38096/