With the rise of wearable technology and constantly tracking aspects of your life, I would like to see how we could share data about ourselves in the form of ambient media. I think it would be fun and engaging to display “stats” about ourselves through wearable symbols, like clothing that changes colors as you meet your “goals” for the day – it could be a conversation starter or an area where the people you see daily encourage you to succeed, whether that is in the form of steps or completing your checklist. It also raises the question about what information people want to share about themselves – maybe a pair of headphones could change based on the genre of music you’re listening to or your mood in order to passively signal to others information about yourself without needing to engage.

You could also image some kind of pin or token that could be altered based on an event need – for example at a MIMS alumni event you can change your pin color based on what you are interested in, as defined by the event organizer.

These types of “wearable” passive examples of ambient media would be considered to be under the “Symbolic Sculptural Display Archetype” Design Pattern by Pousman and Stasko (Fig 2, p. 72), since it only displays a few key pieces of information about the user in an abstract symbolic form that can be altered. They could also be elements of aesthetic design, or fashionable pieces, as well as cultural statements.