Location-aware mobile technologies: Historical,social and spatial approaches

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, mobile telephony became a serious object of scholarly research (Brown, Green, & Harper, 2002; Katz & Aakhus, 2002; Rheingold, 2002). Among other topics, early mobile communication studies focused on how the increasing popularity of mobile phone connectivity had the potential to shrink geographical distances by connecting remote users while on the move. Mobile phones were praised for the possibility of ubiquitous connectivity, but also condemned for disconnecting users from their surrounding space (Gergen, 2002; Puro, 2002). According to this perspective, talking on the phone meant paying attention to a physically absent person, while ignoring the nearby environment. As noted by de Souza e Silva and Frith (2012), because of the public display of remote connection in a space where people are expected to interact with each other and pay attention to their surroundings, mobile phone users were frequently accused of isolating themselves (Hampton, Livio, & Sessions, 2010). As a consequence, mobile phones were also often associated with freeing users from place and location.

Part of the problem with this argument is that it mostly focuses on mobile phones as two-way voice communication devices, that is, portable telephones. When a user is talking to someone, it is likely that the person on the other end of the line is not physically present. However, although most mobile phone use during the first two and a half decades after its commercial release in 1979 was indeed comprised of voice communication, some research labs, media artists, and small start-up companies soon realized that mobile devices could be used for something else other than talking and texting – they could locate users and things in physical space (de Souza e Silva, 2004; Hemment, 2006; Sotamaa, 2002). In clear contrast with the common view of associating mobile devices with a removal from place, these researchers and artists, by developing and analyzing location-based mobile games, mobile annotation projects, and locative audio walks, emphasized how mobile devices could help strengthen people’s connections to their surrounding space, rather them removing people from it. By using the mobile’s location-aware capabilities, users could annotate locations, find other people in the vicinity, and access information connected to specific locations.

Yet, for at least a decade, these projects were restricted to the domain of research and art. Mobile phones have always been location-aware, but until about five years ago location-awareness was often not a feature available to the common mobile user. In order to participate in location-based projects, such as The Familiar Stranger (Paulos & Goodman, 2003), for example, users needed to install special software on their mobile phones provided by the artists. Other commercial location-based games, such as Botfighters (Sotamaa, 2002), relied on triangulation of waves – instead of GPS – to locate players. As a result, pinpointing location was very imprecise, making it difficult to find other players in the vicinity.

Newer smartphones, however, are capable of locating things much more precisely due to a combination of GPS, triangulation of waves and wi-fi. Furthermore, they are capable of running applications (“apps”) that translate this location-awareness into useful services, such as navigation, locating the nearest gas station, locating a nearby friend, and calling a cab in the vicinity. As a result, location-based services and location-based social networks became an intrinsic component of mobile communication. This transition from the domain of art and research to general public use is important not only because people started using mobile phones differently – from connecting to someone remote to connecting to people and things nearby – but also because the popularity of location-awareness brings up new issues about the social implications of using mobile technologies in public spaces. These issues can be categorized into three main themes: privacy (and its correlates surveillance, power, and control), sociability, and spatiality (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012; Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011).

Locational privacy is probably the most prominent concern when it comes to the use of location-aware mobile technologies. In an analysis of popular press discourses on location-based services, we found two main types of concerns related to locational privacy: top-down surveillance from the government and corporations, and collateral surveillance from peers and other users (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2010). Fears of governmental surveillance, very prominent in the media, are very strong in the United States, since Americans typically have low confidence in the government (Lock, Shapiro, & Jacobs, 1999). Corporate surveillance, in particular, deserves attention today due to the increasing popularity of location-based advertising. Obscure and often hard-to-find privacy policies make it hard for customers to control their locational privacy. Users often feel vulnerable when they are not in control of with whom their location is being shared, because they either do not understand applications’ complicated privacy policies, or because they are not given enough information about how their location information is shared with third parties, such as advertising companies (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012). In addition, both scholarly articles and the popular press alike report fears of collateral surveillance and stalking as a consequence of the increasingly public nature of location (Humphreys, 2007; Licoppe & Inada, 2006). Although these fears are real, it is important to keep in mind that perceptions of privacy are often contextual (Solove, 2008), and frequently cultural (Dourish & Bell, 2011). Furthermore, the discourse of privacy often obscures other important issues related to location-aware technologies, such as security, control, power, and sociability (Shklovski, Vertesi, Troshynski, & Dourish, 2009).

Sociability is an important factor to take into consideration when studying location-aware mobile technologies. The use of location-based social networks changes practices of coordination and communication in public spaces (Humphreys, 2007; Sutko & de Souza e Silva, 2011). Micro-coordination (Ling & Yttri, 2002) involves constant calls to schedule and re-schedule meetings, and re-defines mobility and navigation in physical spaces. Location-aware coordination, although much more passive – one does not need to actively make a call, just look at somebody else’s location on a screen – is nonetheless much more pervasive. Studies have explored the implications of location-aware coordination in games, criminal systems, and family settings (Boesen, Rode, & Mancini, 2010; Nova & Girardin, 2009; Shklovski et al., 2009). However, more research is needed to understand the influence of location-awareness in social coordination. Particularly important also is the analysis of how the awareness of other people’s locations will influence social norms in public spaces, and the configuration of social networks.

Finally, one of the most profound implications of location-aware technology use is a shift in our perception of space. Elsewhere I have argued that the ability to move around physical spaces connected to the internet and consequently to other people via mobile technologies is the base for the creation of hybrid spaces (de Souza e Silva, 2006). More recently, we have tied this theoretical framework to the development of net locality (Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011). Net locality is practiced hybrid space, developed by the constant enfolding of digital information and networked connections into local spaces. Net locality is based on the recognition that we are networked, but still connected to local spaces, and that belonging to a global network strengthens local connections. This concept directly challenges traditional views of mobile communication, which emphasize users’ disconnections from local spaces. In net locality, remote connections are still present, but become part of the space in which the mobile user is, instead of removing users from it.

Location-aware technologies allow people to connect to local spaces by coordinating and communicating with others depending on their physical distance to each other. They also allow users to read and write locations (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012). When using most location-based social networks and some location-based services, users are able to read tips and comments that previous users left attached to that location. This information, now containing geographical coordinates, becomes an intrinsic part of the location. Likewise, users are able to write locations by leaving comments or tips “attached” to a location. Digital information attached to locations has a double function of (1) influencing users’ mobility patterns through the city, and (2) changing the character of locations.

Locations have traditionally been seen as places deprived of meaning (Cresswell, 2004). Defined by fixed geographical coordinates, the term location has received sparse scholarly attention when compared to its correlates “space” and “place.” However, with the popularization of location-aware technologies, locations acquire renewed interest and dynamic meaning. Because of the always-changing digital information that becomes an intrinsic part of them, people now check in locations, they search for locations, they even create new locations.

This reconfiguration and reconceptualization of spatial practices and locations as they relate to the use of location-aware technologies points us to future directions of research in mobile (location-aware) communication. Possible research questions worth being explored are: (1) Will the increased ubiquitousness of location-based services influence how people understand locational privacy? (2) What new types of social networks will develop based on location? (3) How does being aware of location change practices of mobility, and the construction of urban spaces? and (4) How are perceptions of privacy, sociability and space understood differently in different parts of the world? To date, most of the research analyzing the privacy, social and spatial implications of location-aware technology has focused on the developed world. However, as smartphones also become popular in the global south, it is critical to study these applications and practices as they are diffused and appropriated into society. Patterns of use and adoption of location-aware technologies in the global south have many similarities to those already defined in the developed world, but also many differences, mostly related to cultural and socio-economic local specificities. For example, a recent analysis of popular press discourses on the use of location-based services in Brazil revealed that locational privacy was not a major concern when it comes to the use of location-aware technologies (de Souza e Silva, 2011). Rather, GPS-enabled phones were often portrayed as valuable devices in finding people (safety) and preventing crime (security), as in the case of a thief caught because he had stolen a GPS-cell phone.

In order to account for these nuances in use and perceptions of technology, we need not only more empirical studies, but also new methodologies and theoretical frameworks that take into consideration local specificities. A good example of a theoretical framework developed explicitly to account for practices of technology use and appropriation in developing parts of the world is Bar, Pisani, and Weber’s (2007) idea of cannibalism, which focuses on how users subvert technology use. Cannibalism also focuses on issues of power and control highlighted as people use and modify technologies in ways that were not originally intended, a form of creative appropriation. Similarly, it will be important to apply existing theories about location-based technology, such as the concepts of net locality and hybrid spaces to other contexts other than the United States and Europe, as a starting point for analyzing these new contexts. The exploration of local uses of location-aware technologies will shed an important light on the future of mobile communication. As smartphones become the norm, so will location awareness.