A significant body of research has addressed whether fixed internet use increases, decreases or supplements the ways in which people engage in residential and workplace settings, but few studies have addressed how wireless internet use in public and semi-public spaces influences social life. Ubiquitous wi-fi adds a new dimension to the debate over how the internet may influence the structure of community.Will wireless internet use facilitate greater engagement with co-located others or encourage a form of 'public privatism'? This article reports the findings of an exploratory ethnographic study of how wi-fi was used and influenced social interactions in four different settings: paid and free wi-fi cafes in Boston, MA and Seattle,WA.This study found contrasting uses for wireless internet and competing implications for community.Two types of practices, typified in the behaviors of 'true mobiles' and 'placemakers', offer divergent futures for how wireless internet use may influence social relationships.
Baym, N.,Y.B. Zhang and M.-C. Lin (2004) 'Social Interactions across Media: Interpersonal Communication on the Internet, Telephone and Face-to-Face', New Media & Society6(3): 299-318.
2.
Berkowitz, S.D. (1971) 'A Cross-national Comparison of Some Social Patterns of Urban Pedestrians', Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology2(2): 129-44.
3.
Boase, J., J. Horrigan, B. Wellman and L. Rainie (2006) The Strength of Internet Ties. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project .
4.
Burt, R. (1992) Structural Holes. Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press.
5.
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
6.
Cohen, S., I. Brissette, W..Doyle and D. Skoner (2000) 'Social Integration and Health: The Case of the Common Cold', Journal of Social Structure1(3): 1-7.
7.
Fischer, C. (1992) America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
8.
Forlano, L. (2008) 'Anytime? Anywhere? Reframing Debates Around Municipal Wireless Networking', The Journal of Community Informatics4(1) URL (consulted 16 September 2008): http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/438/401
9.
Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.
10.
Goffman, E. (1963) Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Order of Gatherings. New York: Free Press.
11.
Goffman, E. (1971) Relations in Public: Micro-studies of the Public Order. New York: Basic Books.
12.
Goldberger, P. (2003) 'Disconnected Urbanism: The Cellphone Has Changed Our Sense of Place More Than Faxes, Computers and E-Mail', Metropolis Magazine, November, URL (consulted 27 March 2007 ): http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=254
13.
Graham, S. and S. Marvin (1996) Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places. London: Routledge .
14.
Granovetter, M. (1973) 'The Strength of Weak Ties', American Journal of Sociology78(6): 1360-80.
15.
Granovetter, M. (1974) Getting a Job. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press.
16.
Habermas, J. (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
17.
Hampton, K. (2001) 'Living the Wired Life in the Wired Suburb: Netville, Glocalization and Civic Society', PhD thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto.
18.
Hampton, K. (2007) 'Neighborhoods in the Network Society: The e-Neighbors Study', Information, Communication and Society10(5): 714-48.
19.
Hampton, K., O. Livio and C. Trachtenberg (2008) 'Is WiFi Use Compatible with Public Space? Wireless Internet Use, Sociability, and Social Networks' , presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Montreal.
20.
Hampton, K. and Wellman, B. (2003) 'Neighboring in Netville: How the Internet Supports Community and Social Capital in a Wired Suburb', City and Community2(3): 277-311. Hannigan, J. (1998) Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis. New York: Routledge.
21.
Harris, K. (2003) 'Keep Your Distance: Remote Connection', Journal of Community Work and Development4(4): 6-28.
22.
Haythornthwaite, C. and B. Wellman (2002) 'The Internet in Everyday Life: An Introduction' , in B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (eds) The Internet in Everyday Life, pp. 3-44. Oxford: Blackwell.
23.
Humphries, L. (2005) 'Cellphones in Public: Social Interactions in a Wireless Era', New Media & Society7(6): 810-33.
24.
Ito, M. and D. Okabe (2006) 'Intimate Connections', in R. Kraut, M. Brynin and S. Keisler (eds) Computers, Phones and the Internet: Domesticating Information Technology, pp. 235-47. New York: Oxford University Press.
25.
Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
26.
Kraut, R., M. Patterson,V. Lundmark, S. Kiesler,T. Mukhopadhyay and W. Scherlis (1998) 'Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-being?', American Psychologist53(9): 1017-31.
27.
Latané, B. and J. Darley (1976) Help in a Crisis: Bystander Response to an Emergency . Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.
28.
Lee, S. (1999) 'Private Uses in Public Spaces: A Study of Internet Cafes', New Media & Society1(3): 331-50.
29.
Ling, R. (2000) 'Direct and Mediated Interaction in the Maintenance of Social Relationships', in A. Sloane and F. van Rijn (eds) Home Informatics and Telematics: Information,Technology and Society, pp. 61-86. Boston, MA: Kluwer.
30.
Ling, R. (2004) The Mobile Connection. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
31.
Ling, R. and B..Yttri (2006) 'Control, Emancipation and Status', in R. Kraut, M. Brynin and S. Keisler (eds) Computers, Phones and the Internet: Domesticating Information Technology, pp. 219-34. New York: Oxford University Press.
32.
Lofland, L. (1973) A World of Strangers. New York : Basic Books.
33.
Lofland, L.H. (1998) The Public Realm: Exploring the City's Quintessential Social Territory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
34.
McPherson, M., L. Smith-Lovin and M.E. Brashears (2006) 'Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two decades', American Sociological Review71(3): 353-75.
35.
McPherson, M., L. Smith-Lovin and J.M. Cook (2001) 'Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks' , Annual Review of Sociology27: 415-44.
36.
Marvin, C. (1988) When Old Technologies Were New:Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century. New York : Oxford University Press.
37.
Matsuda, M. (2005) 'Mobile Communications and Selective Sociality' , in M. Ito, M. Okabe and M. Matsuda (eds) Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, pp. 123-42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
38.
Merton, R.K. and E. Barber (2004) The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
39.
Mesch, G.S. and Y. Levanon (2003) 'Community Networking and Locally-based Social Ties in Two Suburban Localities', City & Community2(4): 335-51.
40.
Milgram, S. (1970) 'The Experience of Living in Cities', Science167(3924): 1461-8.
41.
Nie, N., S. Hillygus and L. Erbring (2002) 'Internet Use, Interpersonal Relations and Sociability: A Time Diary Study', in B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (eds) The Internet in Everyday Life, pp. 215-43. Oxford: Blackwell.
42.
Oldenburg, R. (1989) The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangout and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon House.
43.
Powell, A. (2008) 'Co-productions of Technology, Culture and Policy in North America's Community Wireless Networking Movement', PhD thesis, Communication Studies, Concordia University.
44.
Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.
45.
Quan-Haase, A. and B. Wellman (2006) 'Hyperconnected Net Work', in C. Heckscher, and P. Adler (eds) The Firm as a Collaborative Community: Reconstructing Trust in the Knowledge Economy, pp. 281-333. New York: Oxford University Press.
46.
Quan Haase, A., B. Wellman, K. Hampton and J. Witte (2002) 'Internet, Social Capital and Information Seeking' , in B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (eds) The Internet in Everyday Life, pp. 291-324. Oxford: Blackwell .
47.
Robinson, J.P., M. Kestnbaum, A. Neustadl and A. Alvarez (2002) 'The Internet and Other Uses of Time', in B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (eds) The Internet in Everyday Life, pp. 244-62. Oxford: Blackwell.
48.
Sampson, R., J. Morenoff and T. Gannon-Rowley , (2002) 'Assessing "Neighborhood Effects": Social Processes and New Directions in Research', Annual Review of Sociology28: 443-78.
49.
Sennett, R. (1977) The Fall of Public Man. New York: Knopf.
50.
Weber, M. (1946) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
51.
Wellman, B. (1999) 'The Network Community: An Introduction', in B. Wellman (ed.) Networks in the Global Village, pp. 1-47. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
52.
Wellman, B. and S. Wortley (1990) 'Different Strokes from Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support', American Journal of Sociology96: 558-88.
53.
Wellman, B., A. Quan-Haase, J. Boase, W. Chen, K. Hampton, I.I. de Diaz and K. Miyata (2003) 'The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication8(3), URL (consulted 2 April 2007): http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue3/wellman.html
54.
Whyte, W.H. (1980) The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Washington, DC: Conservation Foundation .
55.
Zhao, S. (2006) 'Do Internet Users Have More Social Ties? A Call for Differentiated Analyses of Internet Use', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(3), URL (consulted 2 April 2007): http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/zhao.html
56.
Zukin, S. (1995) The Cultures of Cities. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
