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Sharing the big apple : a survey study of people, place and locatability

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Over the past half century social trends and new technologies have weakened local social ties and thus, the fabric of civil society itself. Mobile location-aware community systems offer one path to redress these problems by enhancing community cohesion and the formation of social capital by helping people to meet each other and coordinate their actions. However, little is known about the general population's desire and attitude towards these systems. The design space described by the People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places Framework (P3-Framework), was used to guide a survey study of the impact of 'place' on people's social information needs and their willingness to share personal location data. At fourteen different place types (Restaurant, Post Office, etc.) in Manhattan, New York, 527 individuals were surveyed over a 4-week period. At least 77% of all respondents were willing to share personal location data with others, and over half desired to know one or more types of information about the people that came to the survey sites. However, the effect of place - one of the core hypotheses - was found to be a weak predictor of willingness to share personal location data and interest in seeking others'. Demographics, particularly age, combined with place specific variables (i.e. frequency of visit and type of place) proved to be the leading predictors of people's willingness to be located within an absolute frame of reference.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science in Information Systems - (M.S.)
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Information Systems
Year
2005

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Karam, Samer Nadim
Contributors dc:contributor
  • Quentin Jones
  • Marilyn M. Tremaine
  • Fadi P. Deek

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Repository record dc:identifier
https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/theses/478
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:digitalcommons.njit.edu:theses-1477

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
NJIT
Base URL
digitalcommons.njit.edu/do/oai/
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Karam, Samer Nadim. Sharing the big apple : a survey study of people, place and locatability. 2005. https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/theses/478