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CHI '26 · Honorable mention · full-paper review · confidence medium-high

Reflections Towards an Ecology of Internet Connectivity: Three Speculative Scenarios Involving Foot Pedals

Richmond Y. Wong , Nick Merrill , Robert Soden

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This is a conceptually sharp speculative-HCI paper: its value is not in system performance but in reframing connectivity itself. The foot-pedal scenarios are a memorable device for making governance, ritual, and power visible, and the paper is careful to present them as reflective provocations rather than empirical proof.

Axes Lens

Rare contribution shape, typical evidence profile. The point here is not a score. It is to show what kind of claim the paper makes, and whether the evidence pattern is unusual or baseline in this 268 -review set.

Review Summary

This paper’s strongest contribution is conceptual rather than instrumental. It takes a familiar HCI baseline—always-on, ubiquitous connectivity—and shows why that baseline is too narrow for thinking about the social life of internet access. The speculative scenarios are not just illustrative stories; they are used to build a field-level argument that connectivity should be understood as an ecology with multiple dimensions, including norms and rituals, maintenance and repair, governance, collective decision-making, and inequality. The shared foot pedal is a useful artifact because it makes the politics of connectivity legible without pretending to be a deployable solution. That said, the paper’s own framing makes clear that the work is reflective and bounded: the scenarios are developed in a North American context, they are not exhaustive, and their evaluation rests on whether they support reflection for the authors and readers. That makes the evidence appropriate for a speculative-design contribution, but it also means the paper should not be read as validating a general theory of connectivity in the empirical sense. In CHI terms, the paper is best understood as a strong critical/speculative intervention with moderate evidentiary strength: it is persuasive as an argument and as a design provocation, but its claims are intentionally limited by method and scope. The honorable-mention level fits that profile well, because the paper advances the field’s imagination and vocabulary without overclaiming deployment or causal effects.

What Changed

Canon before

CHI work on internet connectivity has often treated connectivity as always-on, ubiquitous, and primarily an individual technical convenience; this paper explicitly pushes against that baseline by reframing connectivity as a socio-technical ecology with alternative values, practices, and governance.

Departure from common sense

The paper directly challenges the default HCI assumption that internet connectivity should be always-on and relatively ubiquitous, arguing that this framing hides other configurations that can support different social values, politics, and technology practices.

Actual novelty

Its main novelty is a speculative design contribution: three North American scenarios centered on a shared "foot pedal" artifact, used to reframe connectivity as a multi-dimensional ecology spanning norms and rituals, maintenance and governance, collective decision-making, and inequality/power.

Evidence

The paper’s contribution is grounded in speculative scenarios and reflective discussion rather than empirical deployment. The abstract states the core reframing and the three-scenario structure, while the discussion frames evaluation as supporting team and reader reflection. The paper also acknowledges that the scenarios are not exhaustive and are bounded to a North American context.

Limits

Method limits

The method is speculative and reflective rather than empirical; evaluation depends on whether the scenarios support reflection for the authors and readers, not on controlled testing or field validation. The paper also states that the number of scenarios was not pre-determined and that it did not attempt exhaustive coverage of all variations.

Deployment limits

The scenarios are presented in a North American context and are not validated as deployable systems. Their value is interpretive and conceptual, so transfer to other settings, infrastructures, or governance regimes would require additional work.

Boundary conditions

The contribution is bounded by speculative practice, near-future scenario construction, and a North American framing. It is best read as a field-level argument about alternative connectivity imaginaries rather than a claim about universal user behavior or system performance.

Manual check: none

Position in field

The paper sits in speculative design and critical HCI, extending internet connectivity research from technical availability toward social, political, and governance dimensions. It is positioned as a reflective contribution for HCI scholars working with speculative practices.

Abstract

HCI's dominant assumptions of always-on and relatively ubiquitous internet connectivity often overlook other potential configurations of connectivity, which may embody alternative social values and politics, or promote alternative types of technology practices. Building on research exploring alternate configurations of connectivity, we develop and present three speculative scenarios in a North American context that configure internet connectivity differently than these assumptions. Each scenario features a "foot pedal" that mediates internet connectivity. Through the scenarios, we conceptualize connectivity as a multi-dimensional ecology. The scenarios explore how alternative configurations of connectivity implicate concerns related to dimensions of: social norms and rituals; maintenance, repair and governance; interests and decision-making beyond individual choice; and broader inequalities and systems of power. These suggest possible alternative ends and goals of internet connectivity. Finally, we offer reflections from our experience developing these scenarios for HCI scholars working with speculative practices.