Pers Ubiquit Comput (2006) 10: 319–323
DOI 10.1007/s00779-005-0052-5
O R I GI N A L A R T IC L E
Ilkka Arminen
Social functions of location in mobile telephony
Received: 26 May 2004 / Accepted: 8 March 2005 / Published online: 10 November 2005
Ó Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005
Abstract Location appears to be one of the most
important aspects of context in mobile communication.
It is a complex piece of information involving several
levels of detail. Location intertwines with other relevant
aspects of context: the parties’ present activity, relative
time and identities. The analysis of mobile conversations
provides insights into the functions of ‘‘location’’ for
mobile users. Most mobile calls involve a sequence in
which location is reported. Location is made relevant by
the parties’ activities. Location telling takes place in five
different activity contexts during mobile calls. Location
may be an index of interactional availability, a precursor
for mutual activity, part of an ongoing activity, or it may
bear emergent relevance for the activity or be presented
as a social fact. Typically, joint activities make relevant
spatio-temporal location such as distance in minutes
from the meeting point via the vehicle used. For users,
location does not appear to be relevant in purely geographical terms.
Keywords Location awareness Æ Location-aware
computing Æ Context awareness Æ Context-aware
computing Æ Conversation analysis Æ Mobile
conversations
studies have largely neglected a more detailed scrutiny of
how mobile individuals orient to their location in the
wild.
Mobile phone users rank location as the second most
important aspect of context [6]. Location, however, is a
complex piece of information because participants refer
to location on several levels of detail (city, locality,
building, position in the building or room, etc.). Further
complexity comes from the fact that location intertwines
with other relevant aspects of context: the identity of the
persons, relative time of the parties and the present
activity of both communicators [6]. Consequently,
location and context are both dynamic; i.e. the relevance
of location for the actor depends on the other aspects of
the context [7, 8]. As an aspect of context changes, the
value of location also changes.
To understand the dynamic nature of location, we
have to study the actual communicative practices in
which location gains its value. These kinds of naturalistic user studies bear also design implications as they
enable the researcher to pinpoint the users’ requirements
exactly at the moment when they emerge. In this article,
the systematics of mobile communicators’ orientation to
their location is mapped and the potential design
implications are considered.
1 Introduction
2 Location-aware mobile telephony
Location-aware systems may enhance mobile computing
[1]. Location appears to be one of the most important
aspects of context in mobile communication [2, 3]. Indeed, mobile telephones are pervasively used for coordination of an ongoing distant social activity [4, 5].
People use mobiles to communicate where they are,
when they come and to arrange meetings. However,
I. Arminen
Department of Sociology and Social Psychology,
University of Tampere, 33014 Tampere, Finland
E-mail: Ilkka.arminen@uta.fi
Tel.: +358-3-2156563
Fax: 358-3-2156080
Location-aware mobile services utilize the information
about the location of the user to offer or to adapt the
service accordingly. Location awareness can mean either
utilizing the position of the device itself or tracking the
location of the user.
User studies show that there are high expectations
concerning location-based services (LBSs) [9]. The users’
needs for LBSs are bound to time and situation and
involve individual variation [10]. Temporal, situational
and inter-individual variations in the needs for LBSs
require further analysis so that LBS would meet the user
requirements. Jordan et al. [11] suggested that the notion
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of affordances would help to link geographic information to the users’ actual needs by modelling task-scaled
definitions of locations.
Recently, there have been some studies of mobile
conversations conducted by analysing their recordings
[12, 13]. Weilenmann has studied particularly the ways
in which location references are used to signal communication difficulties: ‘‘I can’t talk now, I’m in a fitting
room’’. In these cases, location references were embedded in a description of activity that limited or made
participation impossible. The activity in which the person was engaged was the feature that scaled the information value of location. Laurier, for his part, has
shown how mobile professionals routinely stated their
locations on a mobile phone as a part of their mobile
usage. Both these studies on actual communicative
practices point out how the value of location is embedded in the activity in which the mobile user is engaged.
In this article, I will elaborate and detail the way in
which location features in mobile users’ actual communicative behaviour.
3 The case study and research method
To analyse actual mobile telephony, a set of 74 Finnish
mobile phone conversations were recorded in summer
2002. The mobile phone used by the study subject was
the recording device. The mobile calls of four individuals
(two women and two men aged 23–38 years) were taped
within about a week with the permission of all communicative parties. The participants could choose which
calls were recorded, and their anonymity was guaranteed. The material covered both mobile-to-mobile and
landline-to-mobile or mobile-to-landline conversations.
Most of the calls were made to friends and relatives, but
some were work related.
The calls were transcribed and analysed in detail by
using conversation analytical (CA) methods [14, 15]. The
transcripts are not included in this article; however, the
conclusions drawn on the basis of the material will be
presented (for transcribed data, contact the author, or
check his other publications [16]). The aim of the study
is to understand communicative behaviour in mobile
contexts. CA methodology was used to open up the realtime co-ordination of social action that was achieved by
means of mobile technologies. The final objective is to
elaborate the new social practices that new technologies
allow. These new practices are open for further augmentation with new applications.
their location in most calls anyway. In my data, 62
mobile calls out of 74 involved a sequence in which the
mobile party stated her or his location to the other
party. Location telling is an extremely common, even a
predominant, practice in mobile calls.
Location telling during mobile calls takes place in five
different activity contexts. In other words, location
seems relevant for the parties in mobile interaction
during five different types of activities. Location may be
an index of interactional availability, a precursor for
mutual activity, part of an ongoing activity, or it may
bear emergent relevance for the activity or be presented
as a social fact (see Fig. 1). Naturally, the data set is too
small for definitive statistical generalizations, but the
activity types are strongly recurring and their distribution could be studied more reliably with a larger quantifiable sample.
The earlier studies, on landline calls, have shown that
in the opening the answerers orient to demonstrating
their interactional availability or the possible problems
before the reason for calling is dealt with [17, 18]. In
mobile calls, the answerers may volunteer to state their
infelicitous position for interaction through stating their
location, such as being in the toilet (here and elsewhere,
the details come from my set of calls, unless otherwise
stated) or being in the fitting room [13]. This may lead
into a trajectory for rearranging a new call after some
time or for dealing with the problematic situation in
another way. Likewise, audible ‘‘untypical’’ voices (the
answerer’s heavy breathing) or background noise (a
noisy restaurant or disco) or remarkable delays in
answering may prompt the caller to make a ‘‘where-areyou’’ inquiry. Occasionally, callers may anticipate
problems in the answerer’s availability (e.g. in the
beginning of early-morning or late-night calls), and inquire about the answerer’s availability or whereabouts.
These kinds of inquiries and location-telling sequences are made as a preliminary to the call proper,
before the parties have engaged in whatever their reason
for getting in touch is. Interestingly, these ‘‘interactional
availability’’ location queries or telling are in fact not as
Social fact (no activity
implication) (n=4)
6%
Interactional
Emergent relevance
availability (n=10)
for activity (n=6)
15 %
9%
Part of the ongoing
activity (n=14)
22 %
4 Activity contexts for location telling
Mobile communication devices are by definition location free; they can be used anywhere anytime. The usage
of mobile communication device does not technically
require the parties to get to know where the other party
is [5]. Interestingly, the parties seem to communicate
Precursor for activity
(n=31)
48 %
Fig. 1 Types of location telling in mobile phone calls (N=74)
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common as one might have expected on the basis of the
stereotypical images of mobile talk. It is possible that a
mobile phone etiquette has already developed. Namely,
the interactional availability inquiries presume that a
call is answered anyhow, not only when the answerer is
available for a conversation, and that may have been the
case when people were not used to using mobile phones.
Currently, many people (at least in this data set) may
have learned to use the silent mode of the phone and to
answer calls only when it suits them. Infelicitous
answering and the parties’ concern about that seem
relatively rare. However, the data were collected at one
point in time and therefore the guesses about the
development of the mobile phone etiquette are hypothetical.
Most location-telling sequences in these data are
linked with practical arrangements. People state their
location as a precursor for some practical arrangement,
like a meeting, seeing in some place, or finding out about
their schedules that somehow impinge on their mutual
task. Location telling may be an answer to a ‘‘pre-sequence’’ [19] such as ‘‘what are you doing?’’. Typically,
location is asked when the parties seek to find out about
possibilities for mutual activity such as dinner, etc.
These practical aspects of location will be discussed in
more detail later.
Location telling is also commonly done as a part of
the real-time ongoing activity in which the parties are
engaged. A car driver may call and ask which direction
to take; notably this is a fast real-time co-ordination
task, and details of the talk also show the parties’ orientation to a fast exchange of information. Location can
also be a mutual real-time co-ordination task, such as
seeing each other in the cafeteria to meet there. Emergencies and hazardous situations are salient class of realtime location-sensitive activities; a car driver may, for
instance, warn the car behind about a deer by the road.
Finally, a kind of location that is also realized during the
ongoing activities is a virtual location referring to a web
page or other material at hand to be shared with the
communicative partner.
A not common, but existing, social practice involves
location telling due to its social, symbolic qualities (in
contrast to being a part of practical arrangements). In a
call, the caller says that she is on the beach. Her location
telling is not done in the context of asking the answerer
to join the caller on the beach. But mentioning ‘‘beach’’
seems to have been done because of its connotative
meanings that signify ‘‘having fun’’. In that way, location telling is used for arousing symbolic meanings,
which for their part have practical bearings. Here the
caller says she is on the beach to lure or seduce the other
party to join her later to have a fun evening. This kind of
usage of location telling is not a very common practice,
but it is intrinsically an interesting social activity.
Some calls also involve informing of one’s own
location to the other party without any explicit activity
implications. In a call, the called person says that she is
in her home region (far away from the town in which she
studies), while she answers to a ‘‘how-are-you’’ question.
Here, location telling may have a negative implication;
the other party is not available to any mutual activity
because she is away from the town. However, the location is not mentioned in connection with practical
arrangements; its practical implications are not dealt
with in any observable way either. It is nevertheless
noticeable that informing like this is not a common
practice. Sometimes location may have some symbolic
significance, and those properties may be discussed. The
relevance may be biographical, such as a place of personal importance; it may also be cultural, such as a
historic or aesthetic significance. Perhaps surprisingly,
among ordinary calls, the socio-emotional, symbolic
significance of location does not seem to be common.
Finally, there are also a number of calls that do not
involve any location telling (12 out of 74). Nevertheless,
a large majority of calls involve location telling. Mostly
location telling is related to prospective or ongoing social activities in which the parties are involved. Location
may also have a direct interactional significance that is
brought up if a party’s availability for interaction is
limited due to some situated activity. Also, the symbolic
qualities of location may be brought up, occasionally
bearing the practical significance as well. The different
layers of meaning of location can also be embedded and
realized during the same interaction.
5 Social functions of location for mobile telephony
Overall, location seems to have at least three distinct
social functions in mobile calls. Parties may address the
interactional location; i.e. whether or not the answerer is
available for interaction at that moment. Sequentially,
interactional location is (potentially) relevant at the very
beginning of the call, before the reason for calling is
dealt with. As elsewhere, also in this data set, many, even
most, of the mobile calls are made as a part of practical
arrangements. The practical arrangements make relevant the praxiological location that describes the parties’
availability for action. The manner in which location is
made relevant and described to the other party is
activity-bound, i.e. the relevance of location depends on
the nature of activity, for instance, and the very same
location is different for a walker and a car driver. Lastly,
location can also have a socio-emotional content. This
socio-emotional content may also have a practical value
for the parties.
Discussion and findings of this study are summarized
in Table 1.It is mainly based on my own data but it also
summarizes the existing knowledge of the field.
The interactional, proximal location is dealt with at
the very beginning of the call. The caller may ask if the
called can talk/communicate. Occasionally, the called
may inform the caller about problems in communicational availability.
At least in this data set, but most likely also more
generally [5, 12], the mobile phone is the device for
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Table 1 Social functions of location for mobile communication
Location
Function of Location
I International availability
– audio-physical and social features of proximal location: noise (disco), network availability,
(train, remote areas), involvement with proximal interaction, intimacy of situation (toilet, etc.)
– spatio-temporal availability: readiness to engage in action
(Are you doing anything special? Can you come to x?)
– spatio-temporal location of a party vis-à-vis the engaged activity: temporal distance
(half an hour [by car, by train, on foot, etc.]
– real-time perspicuous location in an ongoing action: visibility (I’m at x where are you), real-time
location (I just saw a reindeer by the road, beware—[told to the car driving behind])
– instructable location: spatialized requests (I’m/accident at the crossroads of A and B, etc.)
– proximate praxiological location: microco-ordination of activity (I’m feeling his pulse, the wound
stretches from elbow to breast, etc.)
– virtual location (I’m on the web page x)
– socio-emotional significance of location: biographical relevance (I’m at the cottage of x/my
friend, I’m driving car with x), cultural significance (I’m visiting x (old church, museum, medieval
city, etc.), aesthetic significance (it’s very scenic here)
II Praxiological
III Socioemotional
making arrangements. Most of the calls involve some
practical arrangements, in many of which the location of
the parties is relevant. Mobile telephony also seems to
have shifted the time frame within which appointments
are made. Many of the arrangements are made just before the event. Consequently, location is often temporal
and prospective, how far the party is from the proposed
meeting place. Real-time co-ordination of mobile social
action is something that mobile telephony is particularly
apt.
The socio-emotional location does not seem to be
very central in ordinary, everyday mobile calls. It is not
that the socio-emotional content (emotional displays)
would not take place in these calls, but they are not tied
to location but to persons and relationships. The socioemotional location may be far more significant in other
contexts such as holiday trips, etc.
6 Implications for location-aware mobile services
Taken that practical social arrangements are so commonly made in mobile phone calls, services that would
support them would have immense potential. Notably,
location is often spatio-temporal and prospectively relevant, i.e. how far a mobile party is from a destination.
Location awareness that would also indicate the user’s
estimated temporal distance from the destination would
have a wide applicability for a majority of mobile users.
A simple and usable technical solution would immediately meet the end users’ needs.
Real-time co-ordination of social action might benefit
from applications created in terms of particularities of
this type of action. Real-time co-ordination of social
action often takes place in a very limited time frame.
Even faster and simpler modes of creating and maintaining contact with the communicative partner than the
current modes of mobile telephony might turn useful.
Instant mobile messaging systems seem apt for these
purposes.
There have been a lot of discussions about the
inconveniences caused by the fact that mobile devices
may be used in troublesome environments. A number
of technical solutions have been offered. However, it
may be that the users are happy to solve these problems verbally [6]. This study does not support further
technical solutions for a user’s interactional availability. Nor does socio-emotional content of locations play
a significant role in everyday mobile telephony. New
applications augmenting the socio-emotional content
may well be relevant in tourist industrial sites and
other respective environments.
7 Conclusion
The location of the co-conversationalist is commonly
relevant during a mobile phone conversation. However,
the location is not discussed and does not appear to be
relevant in purely geographical terms. Location is made
relevant by the activities in which the parties are involved. Joint activities make spatio-temporal location
relevant such as distance in minutes from the meeting
point via the vehicle used. The precursor for any mutual
communication is interactional availability, and the
proximal location may have become relevant as a constraint such as being at a dinner table or in a toilet.
Extended discussions of location concern mainly its socio-emotional sense, such as its biographical meaning, a
place where marriage proposal was made, etc. To put it
the other way round, strict geographical location is relevant for mobile conversationalists in only a few cases,
such as instructing somebody on how to find place x
(and even that may require further explanation beyond
geographic location). The design of location-sensitive
devices and applications should take into account that
pure geographical location is rarely of users’ interest.
Acknowledgements I wish to thank Ilpo Koskinen, Esko Kurvinen,
Ditte Laursen, Kalle Toiskallio and Alexandra Weilenmann for
their helpful suggestions and comments.
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