Local familiar strangers in digitalising urban neighbourhoods in Seoul

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine how localised information and communication technologies (ICTs) use is related to interactions with local familiar strangers, from the perspective of communication infrastructure theory. More specifically, we examine (1) how individuals differ in terms of their relationships with local familiar strangers; (2) how individual-level socio-economic factors affect the scope and intensity of such relationships; (3) which individual-level communication factors (i.e. integrated connectedness to a community storytelling network, or ICSN) come into play in such relationships; and (4) how individual use of ICT affects the scope and intensity of such relationships. This study uses in-person survey data ( n = 2001) collected in Seoul in the autumn of 2019. We found that more than half of the respondents communicate at least occasionally with local familiar strangers in their neighbourhoods. However, there were relatively fewer interactions with local familiar strangers from local businesses and local institutions. Females, older people and the more educated were more likely to interact with local familiar strangers. ICSN was positively and strongly associated with interactions with local familiar strangers. Localised ICT use was generally negatively related to interactions with local familiar strangers. This negative relationship between localised ICT use and interaction with local familiar strangers is moderated by ICSN. For residents with lower ICSN, localised ICT use and interactions with local familiar strangers were clearly negatively related, and for those with higher ICSN, the two variables assume a U-shaped relationship.