‘Why would you want to know?’

Abstract

With the widespread adoption of smartphones, mobile users today have an increasing number of ways to communicate about their location; the practice of ‘checking in’, thereby broadcasting one’s location to one’s network of friends on Facebook, is one such way. Previous research has indicated that the social sharing of location information in mobile social media may be associated with significant consequences, for instance, in the areas of coordination, self-presentation, network presence and social capital. An interview study conducted with 31 ‘ordinary’ young Danish smartphone and Facebook users, however, indicates that this specific use of location sharing, despite being well-known and despite the potential of the technology indicated by previous research, has come to play a relatively minor role in their everyday lives. Drawing on the domestication approach, this article examines the meaning making associated with the use and particularly the reluctance towards use of the technology and discusses the discrepancy between the existing literature and limited use found in the present study.