Everyday dwelling with WhatsApp

2014. Kenton O'Hara, Michael Massimi, Richard Harper, Simon Rubens & Jessica Morris
Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing.

Abstract

In this paper, we present a study of WhatsApp, an instant messaging smartphone application. Through our interviews with participants, we develop anthopologist Tim Ingold's notion of dwelling, and discuss how use of WhatsApp is constitutive of a felt-life of being together with those close by. We focus on the relationship "doings" in WhatsApp and how this togetherness and intimacy are enacted through small, continuous traces of narrative, of tellings and tidbits, noticings and thoughts, shared images and lingering pauses; this is constitutive of dwelling. Further, we discuss how an intimate knowing of others in these relationships, through past encounters and knowledge of coming together in the future, pertain to the particular forms of relationship engagements manifest through the possibilities presented in WhatsApp. We suggest that this form of sociality is likely to be manifest in other smartphone IM-like applications.

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Citation

O'Hara, K. P., Massimi, M., Harper, R., Rubens, S., & Morris, J. (2014). Everyday dwelling with whatsapp. Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 1131–1143). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531679, doi:10.1145/2531602.2531679

BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/2531602.2531679,
author = {O'Hara, Kenton P. and Massimi, Michael and Harper, Richard and Rubens, Simon and Morris, Jessica},
title = {Everyday dwelling with WhatsApp},
year = {2014},
isbn = {9781450325400},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531679},
doi = {10.1145/2531602.2531679},
abstract = {In this paper, we present a study of WhatsApp, an instant messaging smartphone application. Through our interviews with participants, we develop anthopologist Tim Ingold's notion of dwelling, and discuss how use of WhatsApp is constitutive of a felt-life of being together with those close by. We focus on the relationship "doings" in WhatsApp and how this togetherness and intimacy are enacted through small, continuous traces of narrative, of tellings and tidbits, noticings and thoughts, shared images and lingering pauses; this is constitutive of dwelling. Further, we discuss how an intimate knowing of others in these relationships, through past encounters and knowledge of coming together in the future, pertain to the particular forms of relationship engagements manifest through the possibilities presented in WhatsApp. We suggest that this form of sociality is likely to be manifest in other smartphone IM-like applications.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work \& Social Computing},
pages = {1131–1143},
numpages = {13},
keywords = {whatsapp, texting, sms, mobile phones, instant messaging., dwelling, communication},
location = {Baltimore, Maryland, USA},
series = {CSCW '14}
}