A Multi-site Investigation of Community Awareness Through Passive Location Sharing

Local community ties are an important social resource, but research shows that these ties have been declining. The social significance of location information offers an opportunity address this decline and support local community building. Through this research, we aim to understand if and how passive location sharing might be socially beneficial for communities. We conducted a deployment of MoveMeant, a location awareness app, across three different communities. Following a research through design approach, we conducted 45 interviews with users of the system and community leaders. The findings suggest that communities face issues related to lack of awareness, cohesion, and identity. We show that the app can help increase awareness of important community resources. At the same time, the findings also show a negative effect of surfacing divisions in a community, which we discuss as a intermediate, perceptual step that may contribute to the amplification effect of technology.