Mobile sociality and spatial practice: A qualitative fieldstudy of new social networking technologies

Mobile social applications or software refer to mobile phone systems that allow users to connect with other people and create technologically-enabled mobile communities. This dissertation explores three case studies of mobile social systems: Dodgeball, BEDD, and SMS.ac. There is a lot of hype around mobile social software, but this project examines what it looks like in everyday practice and explores the question: can mobile social software really bring people together. This project describes the everyday successes and failures of these services and examines how people integrate them into their everyday lives. In addition, the role of space is ever important in mobile communication in ways that are often ignored or irrelevant to more traditional forms of computer-mediated communication. This project explores the relationship between social connection, spatial practices, and mobile communication. This dissertation identifies and describes three functions of mobile social systems: social connecting, social congregating, and social cataloguing. I discuss in the ways mobile social technology is used to form, strengthen, and maintain social connections. I argue the critique that mobile phones atomize individuals is oversimplified and that mobile technology can be used to collectivize, molecularize, and atomize people. I identify how the use of these mobile applications can rearrange social information and relations in public space and thus alter the ways in which subjects experience that space. I explore how network and social information can be linked to space through the process of socio-spatial cataloguing and identify potential ramifications of such cataloguing for surveillance and the commodification of consumer behavior. There is a long tradition of scholarship exploring how people use and integrate new media in innovative and creative ways. This project is a first step in better understanding the social practices and meanings embedded in mobile social software use