Ambivalence about (Inter)Personal Informatics for Smoking Cessation

We explore user ambivalence towards interpersonal informatics systems for smoking cessation. Smokers desire support through such systems to help them reflect on their habits and create strategies for changing them, yet at the same time they are reluctant to share personal information via these systems. We conducted interviews with smokers and recent exsmokers to discuss their current practices to quit smoking and to evaluate a prototypical smoking cessation application. We discuss the different facets of their ambivalence towards collecting, sharing, and reflecting on personal information via interpersonal informatics systems. We close with a summary of the main challenges emerging from such ambivalence and potential directions to address them.