Communication, Coordination and Awareness around Continuous Location Sharing

A core aspect of collaboration tools is the sharing of awareness cues, such as availability and location information, often with the purpose of more efficient collaboration and communication between individuals. In this paper, we present a user study of a continuous location-sharing application, used for a month within groups of 4-5 people, which provided a detailed awareness between group members. Reporting on issues such as its facility for micro-coordination and enabler of ad-hoc social engagements, we analyze the distinct ways in which the service was incorporated into participants’ daily lives. We studied a location sharing service among people in less hierarchical types of relationships than previous studies and found that sharing concerns were based in the participants ‘thinking’ and imagination of potential situations rather than in actual situations. Our findings highlight how people’s understanding of location-tracking technologies is transitional and how it includes a constant re-negotiation of appropriate services and applications for everyday social management. We conclude that map-based continuous location sharing has significant utility among tight-knit dyads.