One of those pesky pop-up ads -- the kind that Internet users try to ignore -- shows a smartphone with the tag lines: "You can do more when your phone runs Windows. Start doing more."

It is with that very goal in mind -- to enable the users of mobile communication technologies to do much, much more -- that Microsoft and a score of other companies (including IBM, Intel and Google as well as such agencies as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health) spend millions of dollars to back the research of Professor Geri Gay, MPS '80, Ph.D. '85, an internationally renowned expert in computer-mediated communication, and her collaborators in Cornell's Department of Communication.

Gay plays a leadership role in a dozen or so studies in the areas of social networks; influence, persuasion and games; and information-seeking. She and her colleagues use their findings to make recommendations for improving existing software or to design brand-new systems and devices. It is this design activity that distinguishes Gay's computer-mediation communication group from other communication research teams around the country.

"Right now people who use cell phones are carrying tiny computers around with them all the time," explains Gay, the Kenneth J. Bissett Professor, chair of communication department, member of the Faculty of Computing and Information Science and director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory. "Our mission is to figure out ways to put these computers to use in more ways than just as phones or machines to access information online --ways that bring people together and make their lives easier."

For example, Nokia is funding one of Gay's studies to examine how the combination of social networking, global positioning systems and photo management/sharing software might enrich social interaction and the enjoyment of public spaces. This past spring, about 80 Cornell undergraduates were given cell phones, and researchers watched for several weeks all the ways in which they used the devices day-to-day.

"We learn so much from young people," Gay notes. "Since our students grew up with these devices, using them is woven into the very fabric of their lives."

Using cell phones to fight obesity in children

In a new study, just funded with $164,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gay and colleague Sahara Byrne will develop the Mindless Eating Challenge, a new cell phone game for young adolescents that rewards good health habits and food choices. The study will investigate how strategies of persuasion in a game can promote healthy behaviors in daily life. "The game will use eating tips, mobile phone snapshots of food that players plan to eat, nurturing of virtual characters and feedback from the system and from peers to promote good nutrition and healthy lifestyles," explains Gay, noting that the game is intended to make young teens more aware of mindless eating, which contributes to the country's epidemic of obesity.

The game will be designed in collaboration with Cornell's Food and Brand Lab, directed by Brian Wansink, says Gay, and will draw from psychological and social psychological research to deliver healthy eating messages to children dealing with obesity or poor dietary habits.

"Through playing the game, we believe that the children will internalize and adopt the messages as learned behaviors," Gay says.

-- Susan Lang

Next, the students will try out a new system that Gay's group is designing. While walking around campus they will be able to view where all their online friends are at any given moment, information that could facilitate their getting together. (This locator software is already commercially up-and-running in 22 American cities.) Then, they will be asked to take a few pictures and write a short note about the places on campus they have been. With this information archived in a central database, others, when standing at the same spot, can view on their own phones the photos and messages of those who've been there before and add their own photos and notes.

"Imagine alumni coming back to Cornell, walking around campus, taking photographs of their favorite spots, and writing their memories about what had happened there in their student days," Gay explains.

Another of Gay's ideas is an X-ray vision-style campus tour in which activities going on inside campus buildings could appear on people's phones as they walk by.

"We live in a digital culture now, where the virtual and physical worlds are blended. As researchers, the critical questions we must ask are: What has been lost? And what's being gained?" says Gay.

A hallmark of Cornell's studies in computer-mediation interaction is the use of the insights of social science research as the basis for software interface design. "Our philosophy is that people are at the center of technology movements," says Gay. "We have the opportunity to improve society and change the way individuals interact with each other and perform the tasks of daily living."

This story is abridged from College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Magazine. Metta Winter is a writer with the Office of Publications and Marketing.