A mobile social network system (MSNS) allows groups of friends to be accessed and engaged with from one's mobile phone. Dodgeball is a MSNS that seeks to facilitate social connection and coordination among friends in urban public spaces. Based on a year-long qualitative field study, this article reports on the social and behavioral norms of Dodgeball use. A comparison between social network sites and Dodgeball highlights some of the communicative differences of mobile technology and the Internet. The findings of the study suggest that Dodgeball use can influence the way that informants experience public space and social relations therein. At times Dodgeball can facilitate the creation of third spaces, which are dynamic and itinerant forms of "third places." Additionally, exchanging messages through Dodgeball can lead to social molecularization, whereby active Dodgeball members experience and move through the city in a collective manner.

Cellphones provide a unique opportunity to examine how new media both reflect and affect the social world. This study suggests that people map their understanding of common social rules and dilemmas onto new technologies. Over time, these interactions create and reflect a new social landscape. Based upon a year-long observational field study and in-depth interviews, this article examines cellphone usage from two main perspectives: how social norms of interaction in public spaces change and remain the same; and how cellphones become markers for social relations and reflect tacit pre-existing power relations. Informed by Goffman's concept of cross talk and Hopper's caller hegemony, the article analyzes the modifications, innovations and violations of cellphone usage on tacit codes of social interactions.

The development and proliferation of mobile social networks have the potential to transform ways that people come together and interact in public space. These services allow new kinds of information to flow into public spaces and, as such, can rearrange social and spatial practices. Dodgeball is used as a case study of mobile social networks. Based on a year-long qualitative field study, this article explores how Dodgeball was used to facilitate social congregation in public spaces and begins to expand our understanding of traditional notions of space and social interaction. Drawing on the concept of parochial space, this article examines how ideas of mobile communication and public space are negotiated in the everyday practice and use of mobile social networks.It would be easy to believe that communication technology has always allowed people to overcome barriers of time and space. People have used the telegraph, telephone, television, computers and the internet to share information and interact across temporal and geographical boundaries. In some cases communication technologies have even encouraged the shift and acceleration of information flows. With the rise of electronic and networked technology, scholars have suggested that social interaction has become increasingly disembedded from the particulars of time and space (Giddens, 1991;Meyrowitz, 1985). People can use the internet and mobile technology to connect with friends and family from all over the world.While telecommunications allow people to connect with those far away, it would be an oversimplification to suggest that these technologies make local connections and relations unimportant. In fact, there is a growing movement to help people use telecommunications to connect with other locals. Services such as CraigsList.com, MeetUp.com and Plazes. com harness the power of the internet to facilitate connections between people based on new media & society 12(5) 763-778

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As augmented reality (AR) is becoming technologically possible and publicly available through mobile smartphone and tablet devices, there has been relatively little empirical research studying how people are utilizing mobile AR technologies and forming social practices around mobile AR. This study looks at how mobile AR can potentially mediate the everyday practices of urban life. Through qualitative interviews with users of Layar, a mobile AR browser, we found several emerging uses. First, users are creating content on Layar in ways that communicate about and through place, which shapes their relationship and interpretations of places around them. Second, we found a growing segment of users creating augmented content that historicizes and challenges the meanings of place, while inserting their own narratives of place. Studying emerging uses of AR deepens our understanding of how emerging media may complicate practices, experiences, and relationships in the spatial landscape.

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This article explores the future research opportunities and challenges of mobile social media. First, I problematize what constitutes the boundaries of mobile social media. Distinctions between location-based mobile social networks and non-location-based mobile social networks are established to suggest that the mobility of social media is in fact much broader than location alone. Second, several key theoretical questions are identified for future exploration, including micro, meso, and macro-level theories. Lastly, methodological challenges and opportunities are reflected upon and culminate in the call for multi-disciplinary programs of research to fully understand the role of mobile social media in the world today.

Information technology and new media allow for collecting and sharing personal information at unprecedented levels. This study explores issues of privacy and surveillance with new interactive technologies. Based on a year-long field study, this project examines how people think about privacy and surveillance when using mobile social networks. Using the case of Dodgeball, the study found that most informants were not concerned about privacy when using the mobile social network because they felt they were in control of their personal information. There was, however, evidence of 3 kinds of surveillance present in everyday usage of Dodgeball: voluntary panopticon, lateral surveillance, and self-surveillance. This study sheds light on the everyday conceptions, meanings, and activities associated with surveillance, privacy, and interactive technologies.