A new article was recently accepted to the Ubicomp conference: Locality and Privacy in People-Nearby Applications. The article, written with Inbal Levi, a research assistant in the group, looks at mobile applications that help users discover new people around them for dating (e.g, Grindr, Skout or Badoo) or for any other reason (e.g., Circle, Highlight). In the study, we wanted to understand how users balance privacy and disclosure when creating new social ties using these mobile apps. Here is the abstract of the paper:
People-Nearby applications are becoming a popular way for individuals to search for new social relations in their physical vicinity. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study, based on 25 interviews, examining how privacy and locality are managed in these applications. We describe how location is used as a grounding mechanism, providing a platform for honest and truthful signals in the challenging process of forming new social relations. We discuss our findings by suggesting theoretical frameworks that can be used to analyze the social space induced by the applications, as well as to inform the design of new technologies that foster the creation of new social ties.
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Download the paper.
See any writing mistake? Let us know, and we might be able to fix it before the publication. Here are some highlights from the paper:
People-Nearby Applications
The Application Waterfall
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