Direct video observation of the uses of smartphone on the move. Reconceptualizing mobile multi-activity

International audienceWe report on the development of a method for observing and recording the uses of mobile communications ‘on the move’, based on the combination of context-oriented recordings made with user-worn camera glasses with mobile screen capture data. We show how this allows the temporal organization of gaze switches (to and away from the mobile screen) to be observed and documented, thus providing crucial empirical information to understand how users actually manage mobile communication as well as other activities in everyday multi-activity settings. We report on the findings of an empirical study of smartphone use in transport situations. Being oriented towards multi-activity appears as a particular form of attunement to the potential sequential implicativeness of events occurring both in the navigation of mobile communication applications or the mobility environment, i.e. as possible occasions to switch the orientation of one’s gaze from one activity-relevant field of activity to another