Life Swap Workshops

This activity was led by Dr Rowanne Fleck (University of Birmingham).

‘Wife Swap’ was a popular UK reality TV show in the 2000s which saw the wife/mother of one family swap places with the wife/mother of another and attempt to take on their roles and responsibilities. The subsequent weeks gave both the wives and their host families an insight into the other family’s life on a very personal level, leading them to reflect on and question some basic assumptions about their own routines and ways of life, and to realise that there are other ways of doing things. This often led to lifestyle, or behaviour, change. Whilst this kind of ‘life swap’ is impossible (and undesirable) for most of us, we believe that sharing and discussing, or ‘swapping’ personal/life data can offer a real opportunity for people to gain insight into each others’ lives in a way that can prompt and support reflection on both their lives.

We ran a series of workshops to understand how sharing personal informatics data influences boundary management strategies, particularly among those with flexible working routines. We are particularly interested in the kind of insight people may gain from sharing their data, the type of reflection that results from it, and whether they will change their behaviour as a result.