Shared Secret Places: Social Media and Affordances

TL;DR

This paper explores how social media, exemplified by Strava, alters users' perception of places through shared digital affordances, influencing their experience and construction of place in ways invisible to non-users.

Contribution

It applies Gibson's relational affordances and niches to understand how social media users share and perceive places differently, offering a new perspective on digital-place interaction.

Findings

Strava users perceive places differently due to social media integration.

Shared digital affordances influence group experiences of place.

Relational affordances help explain invisible shared perceptions among users.

Abstract

The Social Media application Strava is used by exercisers to track running and cycling activities. Strava is carried with the exerciser and displays trophies and leaderboards to reward competitive performance. We were prompted by an auto-ethnographic account of Strava use to examine the way in which a particular stretch of running track around a lake showed up differently to the runner once Strava was integrated into their running practice. We look to Gibsons relational notion of affordances and niches to understand this change in direct perception. We propose that these concepts have potential in helping us to research and understand the ways in which groups of Social Media users share and construct a similar experience of place in a way that is largely invisible to non-users. We consider some of the preliminary implications of this differentiated use of place and demonstrate the way in which a relational view of affordances helps us to make sense of this phenomenon.