“A related implication of Dodgeball use was social molecularization. By communicating about locations in the city, my informants could cognitively map urban public space. In addition, Dodgeball users can move through the city differently, based on the social-location information available to them. If they know friends are at a bar, they can go join them. In fact, the more friends who check in to a bar, the greater the pull to meet up with them. In this way, Dodgeball use contributes to a collective experience and movement of social groups through urban public space.
“Dodgeball is not contributing to the further atomization of mobile phone users in public spaces, but it is not necessarily contributing to their collectivization, either. Instead, Dodgeball is primarily connecting Dodgeball users to one another and not to the general urban public, thus leading to a kind of social molecularization.”
Link: Mobile Social Networks and Social Practice: A Case Study of Dodgeball (indiana.edu, via)
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