Performing a check-in: emerging practices, norms and 'conflicts' in location-sharing using foursquare

  • Authors:
  • Henriette Cramer;Mattias Rost;Lars Erik Holmquist

  • Affiliations:
  • Mobile Life @ SICS, Stockholm, Sweden;Mobile Life @ SICS, Stockholm, Sweden;Mobile Life @ SICS, Stockholm, Sweden

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Location-sharing services have a long history in research, but have only recently become available for consumers. Most popular commercial location-sharing services differ from previous research efforts in important ways: they use manual 'check-ins' to pair user location with semantically named venues rather than tracking; venues are visible to all users; location is shared with a potentially very large audience; and they employ incentives. By analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with foursquare users and 47 survey responses, we gained insight into emerging social practices surrounding location-sharing. We see a shift from privacy issues and data deluge, to more performative considerations in sharing one's location. We discuss performance aspects enabled by check-ins to public venues, and show emergent, but sometimes conflicting norms (not) to check-in.