Collaborative TV Control: Towards Co-Experience and Social Connectedness

Consuming media together is enjoyable and lets people connect with one another. However, the control of a TV, for instance, is still restricted to one user. This limits individual participation in group decision-making, particularly in the home context which can cause frustration and impact social interaction negatively. In this paper, we explore how we can support users in the living room to collaboratively interact with the TV in order to enhance social interaction and support the selection of a movie everyone is up for watching. Therefore, we investigate three collaborative approaches to movie selection: Consensual, Hierarchical, and Autocratic. We empirically validated the approaches’ effect on perceived co-experience, social connectedness, and team performance as indicators for social interaction. Therefore, we conducted a mixed-subject experiment (N = 30, 10 groups) inside a living room in groups of three choosing a movie together. Results show that the collaborative approach to movie selection has an influence on collaboration and social interaction. Promoting consensual decision-making or enabling users to provide movie recommendations under the hierarchical approach empowers individuals, supports involvement, and is perceived as fair while also enabling a higher chance of picking a movie everyone enjoys watching. Letting only one user interact with the TV, stimulates communication, yet, it enhances the chance of excluding group members. Founded on these insights, we discuss suggestions for the future design of collaborative, interactive media systems toward co-experience and social connectedness.