With the spread of new technologies and social media, new ways of interacting in one’s local community have been fostered. While different studies suggested that mobile social media could have allowed the urban practice of creating one’s personal space online even when going around in social spaces (e.g., Ito, Okabe, & Anderson, 2009), a different perspective could refer to their use to overcome the constraints perceived in starting new local social interactions, such as the indifference, the civic inattention, the individualist tendencies. This is specifically true with reference to People-Nearby Applications (PNAs), which are always more used to meet new people, whether for friendships and/or romantic dating. Relying on mobile devices GPS, they give individuals the chance to find new people to meet nearby based on their geographical proximity; this could help in recovering the chances to get unplanned encounters and meet different people who live nearby yet is still unknown. A preliminary study with 647 Italian PNAs users (age: M = 26.76; SD = 8.77) showed that offline loneliness with reference to both friendship and romantic relationships is a significant predictor of PNAs use to overcome offline perceived constraints, such as the lack of social places and opportunities to interact with new people (Procentese & Gatti, 2019). These results suggest that PNAs could represent an adaptive answer when individuals choose to use them due to troubles in interacting with new people offline – the latter could be due both to individual and contextual characteristics, but according to the Uses&Gratifications Theory (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973) framework the kind of social media chosen suggests that the second option deserves more attention than it has received so far. Moving from these preliminary results, the idea that PNAs could represent a way to re-connect people within their local communities rather than an obstacle will be discussed.
When online and offline interactions meet: People-Nearby Applications as new tools to foster local sociability? / Gatti, Flora; Procentese, Fortuna. - (2019). (Intervento presentato al convegno ICSI Regional Conference 2019 “(Re-)Connecting Perspectives on Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction” tenutosi a University of Tilburg nel 14-15 Ottobre).
When online and offline interactions meet: People-Nearby Applications as new tools to foster local sociability?
Flora Gatti
;Fortuna Procentese
2019
Abstract
With the spread of new technologies and social media, new ways of interacting in one’s local community have been fostered. While different studies suggested that mobile social media could have allowed the urban practice of creating one’s personal space online even when going around in social spaces (e.g., Ito, Okabe, & Anderson, 2009), a different perspective could refer to their use to overcome the constraints perceived in starting new local social interactions, such as the indifference, the civic inattention, the individualist tendencies. This is specifically true with reference to People-Nearby Applications (PNAs), which are always more used to meet new people, whether for friendships and/or romantic dating. Relying on mobile devices GPS, they give individuals the chance to find new people to meet nearby based on their geographical proximity; this could help in recovering the chances to get unplanned encounters and meet different people who live nearby yet is still unknown. A preliminary study with 647 Italian PNAs users (age: M = 26.76; SD = 8.77) showed that offline loneliness with reference to both friendship and romantic relationships is a significant predictor of PNAs use to overcome offline perceived constraints, such as the lack of social places and opportunities to interact with new people (Procentese & Gatti, 2019). These results suggest that PNAs could represent an adaptive answer when individuals choose to use them due to troubles in interacting with new people offline – the latter could be due both to individual and contextual characteristics, but according to the Uses&Gratifications Theory (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973) framework the kind of social media chosen suggests that the second option deserves more attention than it has received so far. Moving from these preliminary results, the idea that PNAs could represent a way to re-connect people within their local communities rather than an obstacle will be discussed.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
