This is a piece I wrote for my sociology of new media class, SOCY 931. I don't actually have much to add to this one, but it broadly looks at topics of location, interface theory, ubiquitous tech, and gamification in social context. As usual, this is not peer-reviewed, but I am always interested to hear critiques or comments on pieces published here.

Also, I noticed after publishing that one of the sections in my last piece got put into some weird text box (that isn't scrollable on mobile), so I'll try to ensure that doesn't happen again here :)

image from: Design Observer

Social Impacts of Interfaces and Locational Data

Redefining Location and Engaging with the Playful Cultural Shift

Kristopher Jones
Dr. Martin Hand
Sociology 931
April 2017

Location has long had an effect on people’s ability to be social. In early human history, there was a requirement to be relatively close to the same physical location in order to exchange meaning. With development of technology as early and simple as written alphabets to the development of the printing press and into contemporary technology such as the internet, the previous requirement of physical location for sociability to be realized has been gradually removed. In societies with technologies that possess the ability to communicate across the globe with immediacy, what impact does location have on the social? In what ways are new media shifting the ways in which location takes on meaning in contemporary society? How do location-aware technologies shape the media environment, and in what ways do they have a shaping effect on the real-world locations involved and their meanings to others? Is this simply an extension of the shifting roles of consumer and producer into prosumer that was seen with the movement into web 2.0? In what ways are both the interface and user involved in defining interactions? It has been suggested that there is an ongoing cultural shift toward playfulness through gamification, and that the implementation of location into gaming has an effect on the definition or redefinition of public space with an infusion of playful attitudes. It seems evident that location still has important and defining effects on the social, especially when combined with current technological trends. These areas will be further elucidated from a number of perspectives to place the importance of location in contemporary society.

The concept of a shift in the relevance of location to social interaction is brought up by the reading from Couldry and Hepp’s (2017) The Mediated Construction of Reality and their discussion on waves of mediatization. It is seen through their analysis that location in oral cultures is required for communication, while in the later waves of mechanization, electrification and digitalization, meaning could be transmitted and moveable over increasingly large expanses of physical space. The analysis done by Couldry and Hepp (2017) also highlight another salient point, which is that the emergence of specific media at different times are not the defining factors in socialization, but instead the “aggregate of accessible communications and the role that they play in moulding the social world” (39). This exposes the limitation of looking at any specific medium in terms of a shaping effect, but emphasizes that trends across the media environment and the multitude of media outlets available to the public and their uses have important implications on shaping social interaction. While the use of locational data in new media is not likely to signal any larger waves of mediatization, it does have important effects on the social world that should be explored.

Interfaces are an important technological aspect involved in many contemporary new media systems that should be conceptualized here before further use. An interface is generally considered something that makes a connection between two parties, but also becomes a part of that system and has an influence on how each portion interacts with each other. The term was originally used in computer science, with one of the earliest examples being the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the creation of the mouse and pointer, that brought the term into everyday use. The basic idea of the GUI is to translate intended meaning from binary code to a visual language understandable to a non-specialized user (Bratton 2015). Interfaces can define the possibilities of interaction in ways that may or may not be obvious to the user, before the user is even involved (Bratton 2015). “… an interface necessarily limits the full range of possible interaction in a specific and arbitrary way. Any interface, because it is a specific summary, must eliminate or make invisible a whole range of other equally valid possible interactions.” (Bratton 2015: 221). At the same time, the interface itself has no meaning without a human actor to manipulate it or interpret the translations, so the interface must also include the human agent for it to have meaning to social interaction in the first place (Lash 2002). Considering this allows us to move beyond man versus machine binary and look at each piece of the interaction as an important part of the interaction as a whole, as all parts play a role in its definition. These ideas take into account the importance of the interface in defining or limiting the user in particular ways, while also understanding that users themselves also play a role. Though interfaces play an important and at times defining role, implications of user interaction cannot be ignored in favor of an argument that removes all agency from the user.

Several other conceptualizations are also helpful to build on our notion of the interface. Gane and Beer talk about three different ways to conceptualize interfaces: “they are cultural devices; they mediate everyday experiences in social and physical spaces; and they enable different forms of power and/or surveillance” (cited in de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012:3). Pierry Lévy discusses the adding of layers in the development of the personal computer – intending to illustrate that each layer does not only translate or mediate, but also shapes interaction and creates meaning (Lévy 2001 cited in de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012). Each layer changes the way the computer or device functions, but also changes how we interact with them. These perspectives put particular emphasis on the device as an important aspect of interactions involving interfaces, potentially to the point of being overly technologically deterministic. Even so, it is an important perspective to take to position technological importance while also considering aspects of human agency and social constructivism.

It is evident that we have come quite a way from the origination of the mouse pointer, with multiple degrees of advancement. The invisibility or disappearing nature of interfaces is an aspect that requires discussion, as it links closely to the concept of ubiquitous media. As users continue to interact with increasingly connected media through a variety of platforms and interfaces, the role of the media in facilitating or at the least playing a role in social interactions becomes more passively accepted, and decreasingly acknowledged. Combining both ubiquitous media and the idea of the interface brings forth the concept of the pervasive interface, which can be mobile and increasingly invisible. The pervasive interface is a mobile device such as a mobile phone, that through its normalization and earned pedestrian nature, is made invisible or less visible through its commonly acceptance as a facet of everyday life in contemporary society.

The importance of examining the interface as a precursor to looking at locational data specifically is that we can now theoretically position issues within the framework, while also juxtaposing this view with alternative, less technologically deterministic perspectives as well. A balance needs to be taken in this respect to avoid overtly falling into the binaries that writing on new media tends to lean toward: dystopian/utopian, social constructivist/technological determinist, luddite/technophile. In addition to positioning a perspective, it also examines the ways in which locational data is collected, acted upon and provides meaning through a human-machine interface. By looking at both the mediation effect of interfaces along with the conceptualization as broader cultural and playful media devices, the role these interfaces play in interactions that take place in both the real world and outside of the real world can be seen, and are identified as both mediators and cultural devices (Hjorth and Richardson 2014).

The concept of the cultural interface deserves some attention here. When a device is used to access culture through an interface, the definition evolves from simply an interface to a cultural interface. This entails a combination of the access to cultural material, while incorporating the filter effect of interfaces, which defines or at the very least influences how people are able to access and interact with culture (de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012). Because users don’t necessarily understand the ways in which these interfaces function and are not required to have this knowledge to use them since they are translative in nature, they have at least some function as a filter. This concept brings us back to some of the ideas brought up by Kittler, where software interfaces structure what is possible to think, it also structures how we access and in what ways we are able to interact with cultural objects (Ruppert, Law and Savage 2013, Hand 2017). Again, these perspectives tend to remove agency from the user and place it in the device or interface and must be balanced in a way that recognizes the ways in which user interaction also is able to influence social or cultural interaction.

As discussed earlier, Lash brings up the concept of technological life being a mix of man and machine as an interface, and the requirement of using technology in order to function as a social being in contemporary society (2002). This is partially as a function of our social relations being conducted over large spaces of time and at distances that are only efficient and possible by utilizing technology. In this way, location (or our normalization of socializing with people not in our immediate area) has indirectly influenced our reliance on technology to maintain social relations between each other. For Lash, this manifested in a number of other ways and created what is understood as the information society (2002). In this society, we experience technology or objects as opposed to knowing them or simply creating them and being “outside” of them. As a result, the technological objects take on a more social quality, being able to judge, measure, translate, and interpret. Again, this theoretical view aims to look at humans and technology on equal ground to defining social relations, in what Lash refers to as a flattening of forms of life (Lash 2002). This view is also noted by Hand (2008) in the quote:

“While not simply an outcome of digitization, it is argued that digitization enables and intensifies processes of circulation, flattening, de-territorialization, and de-differentiation, and for new kinds of objects, subjects and practices to become emergent and convergent in a transition from analogue to digital cultures. (Hand 2008:17)

This view of flattening, de-territorialization, and the emergence of new practices as a result of a shift in media culture is particularly evident and ongoing in the case of location and locational data. These ideas serve as a base from which to move forward when looking at cultural practices relating to locational data production, protection and promotion.

Though it has been mentioned in passing already, it is important now to focus on location as a stand-alone concept. What is it that we are talking about when we say location or locational data? At this point it is likely obvious that new media has a number of ties to location in a variety of contexts. We have talked about the historical importance of location to social aspects of society, and the gradual removal resulting from technological advancements. We have discussed the normalization of socialization at a distance. But what is locational data, and how is it used in new media applications that has changed the ways in which we consider location? At its most basic, location and locational data is related to a geographical place, sometimes in relation to another place, and other times referred to simply by a coordinate position denoted by latitude and longitude. Location-aware technologies are best described by de Souza e Silva and Frith as “mobile devices able to locate themselves via global positioning system (GPS), Wi-Fi, or triangulation of radio waves, and therefore able to provide users with location-specific information” (de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012:6). Though there have been a number of mobile devices that have had some form of GPS or locational capabilities over the past several decades, it is the recent proliferation of devices such as the smartphone and the practices that have developed around locational data and its use that have had significant effects on how location is used and defined. It is at this point where the location-aware mobile device or location-aware interface begins to take on unique meaning and interpretation of action within society.

Previous technologies and interfaces were able to change a user’s environment, but tended to leave it unchanged for others. For example, an iPod or a book that you bring on public transit or into nature on a walk changes the environment you are in, and may engage your imagination in ways that others around you are not privy to. This has shifted with the introduction of Web 2.0 and the participatory web, the evolution of the prosumer, and proliferation of locational data. Now interaction with locational data can have effects on others, to the point of even being transformative of their experience with such data. This is due to the ability to attach data to a location in ways that were previously not possible (de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012). This could include things such as restaurant reviews, location-based photos, or other location-specific information. These changes require and force a shift in how location has traditionally been conceptualized. While still geographical coordinates, locations can now have dynamic meaning as a consequence of having data attached to it, and the continued creation and selective removal of data by active prosumers.

The dynamic nature of the infrastructure of location and data in this framework is important, as is the understanding that because of the decentralized production of this locational data, there are both novel and significant uses of this capability. What is substantial is the understanding that as location is used, it is given relevancy as it shapes social, political and spatial interactions. People have the ability to give silly names to their house for their friends to check into, or people may mark a spot where a historically significant event happened and others can contribute information to this to create a store of information tied to location that others can access, use, and contribute to.

While humans are able to contribute to this dynamic flow of information attached to locations, it is important once again to also note the ways in which the interfaces we use also play a role in filtering our access to this and other data. Moving back to the idea of a cultural interface, the ways in which users are able to contribute to this public store of locational information is significant as it will shape any data available (for example, if the interface only allows text input, a visual contribution may not be possible, will be more difficult, or will require more creative solutions such as using text to relay visual meaning for the user). How the information is displayed and how users are able to access the information is also significant. For example, if someone is searching for food using a location-based service like google or AroundMe, users may be in the same space, but looking for different things – a coffee shop or record store, and their locational data is filtered based on their preferences (de Souza e Silva and Frith 2012). There may be other factors involved as well, such as distance to the location, rating in relation to other shops in the same area, or other filtering factors which may or may not be user customizable depending on the interface used. In this way, both the interface and the user themselves in their interaction are integral to the filtering function and feed into the data that is accessible to the user.

While locational data attached to a specific location is significant, locational data attached to users has significant effects on the ways people socialize. In what ways does new media influence the ways in which we engage in social coordination? Humphreys defines social coordination as “communicative exchanges around organizing and situating our physical selves in relation to one another” (Humphreys 2012 cited in Frith 2015:68). When this is considered in the context of location sharing with new media, the connection between social coordination and the sharing of location to coordinate with others goes hand in hand. One reason that users of technology share their location is to situate themselves in relation to others in their social network, and do so in ways that make themselves visible in relation to their social group. Another way to frame the connection between social coordination and location is proposed in terms of strengthening social interaction: “… location-aware technologies strengthen people’s connections to their surroundings because they help to locate other people and things around them” (de Souza e Silva 2006, 2009, de Souza e Silva & Sutko 2009, Gordon 2008, Humphreys 2007 cited in de Souza e Silva & Frith 2012: 6). In these descriptions, location takes on a much different meaning than simply a coordinate of latitude and longitude, and is instead a way of users to relate to each other in the digital world by marking their location in the real world. In this way, location is used to create social connections between users as opposed to contributing to a body of information related to a location.

To provide an example of how this concept of sociability based on location has worked in practice, the slightly dated case of Lovegety can be used and extrapolated to more contemporary applications. Lovegety was a Japanese stand-alone device which focused on others near the user as opposed to using technology to contact a distant person. It would notify the user if another user was near and wanted to interact (Frith 2015). In this way, it diverged from much of the communication technology that aimed to reach remote others and instead worked to link those nearby for interaction. Similarly, check-ins on another service called dodgeball served as a way to let friends know the general location that they were in. This was not done to meet up at that exact location, but somewhere in the area at a later time (Frith 2015). These different uses of location data sharing provide evidence of how its use can contribute to the development as a social practice and to facilitate social engagement.

While Lovegety is a dated example, it is a precursor to more contemporary services that have come into mainstream use with similar aims in mind. As such, it is an interesting example to use as practices of use evolved to other platforms with similar aims. Other dating or hook-up apps such as Tinder and Bumble also serve to connect users within a specified geographic radius for the purpose of facilitating social and/or physical interaction between users. These platforms have moved to a more virtual existence, not having to move around in public with the device like Lovegety, but the underlying principle is still the same between all platforms – to facilitate social coordination between users that are geographically close together. It is interesting to note that with further development and adoption of these services also came with a distancing of users (Lovegety users having to walk around near each other, to Tinder users being able to swipe within a specified radius from wherever they are), as well as additional filtering functions (age, gender, and search radius). This once again shows the filtering effects of interface systems, but are integral to their function and adoption. Also important to note is that talk about any specific service is likely not the most helpful in terms of social research, as they are likely to shift over time and sometimes disappear with other services rising to take their place. However, the social practices developed over time by users and the shared practices and understandings that transcends individual services is the important area of interest for research purposes. In this way, Lovegety and other more contemporary examples are there to place practices, as opposed to differentiate between services.

One concern that was raised around the Lovegety device, and is a persistent issue surrounding locational data, is the notion of locational privacy. While it can be useful and expected at times to share locational data, there are different approaches that apps or platforms use to manage this information in order to address the issue of locational privacy. For example, the app Find My Friends uses location tracking as a model. What this means is that if the app is on, you are sharing your location (Frith 2012). Facebook and Twitter use a sharing model, where users are able check-in, a function that also has personalized privacy controls, giving the user more control of their posts regarding locational data (Frith 2012). Concerns about privacy are not new, but the concept is made much more complicated with the internet and social aspects of data use. There have been concerns raised about movements toward locational data use for commercial purposes and the push for wireless service providers to integrate location technologies into mobile devices enabling spam and surveillance, as well as issues of stalking and shifting power dynamics on a more personal level (Smith 2007a, Licoppe and Inada 2009). Many of these issues are simply an extension of previous privacy concerns that had no relation to new media before its existence, but have been made more complicated and required additional measures to deal with in the case of new media applications. New media has made these conversations more complex by that nature of its function through metadata or “digital fingerprints” and personally identifiable information (Smith 2007a, Smith 2007b). There also tends to be undertones of child protection from online exploitation and fears of government surveillance of online communication that also color the debate around online privacy generally, and these issues are easily extrapolated into the realm of locational data (Smith 2007b). This contribution of new media and locational data to surveillance and privacy concerns is not serendipitous, and has been theorized in the literature: “In essence, such a ‘wiring up’ of society is seen in terms of a more penetrative embedding of technocratic control and surveillance within previously ‘public spheres’” (Hand 2008:30). While these concerns are unlikely to simply dissipate, there have also been no fool-proof methods of dealing with these issues in a way that appeases all parties offline, which is likely to also be the case online. Regardless, the conversations should continue to happen, and strategies to best deal with locational privacy are important to engage with to develop best practices.

Licoppe and Inada (2009) describe ways of community mediated surveillance through collective action in cases of location-aware media in cases of stalking. This demonstrates one method of dealing with locational privacy and stalking, but it is quite specific to particular aspects of the game they are studying, Mogi. Though aspects of this solution may be applicable to other cases, each medium, service or game will need to be mindful of locational privacy and cases of stalking and build in ways to deal with this issue, and community action will likely be structured to some extent by the affordances given by each medium or interface. In this way, it is difficult to strategize best practices to deal with issues of locational privacy and stalking without speaking to specific platforms or services.

As is shown with the case of the online location game Mogi and issues of locational privacy, gaming also plays a role in the definition of social interaction and is significant when examining the effects of locational data. To really delve into this area and its relevance, it is best to start with a look at gaming culture specifically. The traditional idea of a game has a few general characteristics. It tended to be bound to specific place, at least before video games. Board games were defined in play space by their board, and required people to be in the general vicinity to participate. This specific physical location in which game rules apply was coined the “magic circle” by Huizinga, as a way to define and locate this space when exploring games (Huizinga 1955 cited in de Souza e Silva and Sitko 2009). When players discuss the game or make rules as they go, they break the barrier between the magic circle and the real world, in a practice known as metagaming. All of these concepts are related to place, and the relationship between or induced separation between places. This has also made it very difficult to define what exactly a game is, and what is different about new media and locative games when compared to traditional games. As gaming has become more mobile and pervasive, the boundaries of the magic circle has been continually expanded, “spatially, temporally, and socially” (Montola 2005 cited in de Souza e Silva and Sitko 2009:1). The naming of this genre of game has also been difficult, but location based games, augmented reality games, pervasive games, mixed reality games, and big games are all terms that attempt to encompass these practices, and exhibit characteristics of locational games and new media that we are interested in here. For simplicity, I will use location based games as a catch all reference for the entirety of these terms.

De Souza e Silva and Sitko (2009) propose two characteristics that differentiate these games from traditional games, which I think are quite helpful: they “use the city space as the game board, and they use mobile devices as interfaces for game play” (3). With these two characteristics, you can see the continued evolution and extended boundaries or even the destruction of the magic circle as it mixes the play space with the serious space of ordinary life, and the reasons that gaming culture is more visible and how it could contribute to a shift toward a more playful culture with continued exposure. One significant factor that permeates location based games, is that they take real world spaces and redefine them for alternative purposes than what is typically considered normal there, and expands the idea of play beyond what was traditionally considered a bound location into public space. Examples include walking through urban spaces while playing games on a location-aware, internet-enabled, mobile device encouraging unprecedented ways of exploring, navigating, and interacting with urban and digital spaces, sometimes simultaneously. A contemporary example of this is the Pokémon Go game/app and its predecessor Ingress, both apps or games developed by Niantic. In both games, players must walk around real world environments and interact with digital artifacts that are connected to real world locations or attractions. Players must physically travel to these spaces, which is monitored and tracked using GPS, and interact with them within a small area of interaction, requiring players to be out and visible in real world locations. In the digital world, these locations are able to be interacted with to give players more information about the area or attraction, linking back to previous concepts of the participatory web and location-based information. These location-based games in some cases have adopted all of the aspects of this into a single interface.

The layering of location and the hybridity of the physical and digital spaces leads us to consider a redefinition of the idea of location. In this reconsidered idea of location, the virtual world is superimposed or layered on top of the real-world, and requires interaction using a combination of physical and digital media or interfaces in order to fully engage with the entirety of the location. Even so, depending on the location, there may be more information available than an individual can realistically interact with. The filtering effect of interfaces as well as prioritization on the part of the individual also becomes important here to decide what is important or should be interacted with.

The notion of layering and space leads to a discussion of the conceptualization of location and space that is particularly helpful to place this definitional shift in the idea of location. Burrows and Beer discuss a concept of assemblages and space described by geographers Crang and Graham (Burrows and Beer 2013). The idea of augmented space, enacted space, and transducted space are all relevant to this area, and help to position shifts in new media and locational awareness. Augmented space is the simplest of the three, and the least complicated. It is built on the idea that physical spaces already and for a long period of time have had information built into them – things like signage, advertisements, and others. Augmented space is simply this same physical informational infrastructure, but with a digital overlay. Things like electronic billboards would fit into this space: digital media is being added to the physical space, but without much in terms of significant changes in the information being distributed. Enacted space refers to locations or environments where integration of digital media not only add to the space, but relocate human agency and connect people in particular spaces into a larger network as a result of their use of devices. The contemporary smart phone is one example of this, a device that has the potential to change the human body from that of physical isolation, into one that may connect to other bodies or information from the networks that they become integrated into as a result of their use. Burrows and Beer further support this redefinition of space, as “with enacted space, we see reconfigurations to social connections and interactions, we see information being retrieved in different social settings, we find spaces of consumption altered, new forms of urban engagement” (Burrows and Beer 2013:73). It is in this enacted space that shows the most promise sociologically, and this is the type of space that is being discussed in all of the above discussion. There is also the concept of transducted space, though this holds less relevancy for this particular discussion. Transducted space takes into account that within the networks of informational exchange, human agency is simply the top of the pyramid of data flows, whereas a majority of the information exchanges that happen are actually between various forms of intelligent technology, and operate for the most part without human interaction. While still relevant to digital sociology generally, transducted space is not particularly helpful in contributing to the assessment of location and social interaction in this context.

The discussion on gaming and location and the hybridity of location provides an easy transition into the concept of location at play, as well as the idea of a playful cultural turn facilitated by the use of real world spaces as playful spaces. The playful cultural turn is described as a cultural shift influenced by the emergence and proliferation of the participatory centered internet, and the movement away from “play” as a defined and bounded human activity, which instead becomes a way of experiencing the world (Hjorth and Richardson, 2014). Similar to social organization and coordination and the impacts of interfaces on social interaction, these expanded concepts of games serve to shape and redefine location for players, and potentially for those around them. The implications of this shift are not just that urban space is reconfigured as playful spaces, but that internet-connected mobile technologies bring a digital layer to the construction of the playful urban space. In this way, the real world becomes a layered space, with interfaces required in order to interact with the different aspects of what exists in the immediate physical vicinity. It is through this layering and multiple modes of interaction that technology solidly integrates itself into daily life and at the same time, stays increasingly invisible. Although there is a digital layer on top of these real-world spaces, it is not immediately obvious to those in the space necessarily, and sometimes not even to those who are interacting with both layers of space. Once again this takes us back to Lash’s ideas of the information society, and human experiences of technology and its integration into everyday mundane life as opposed to technology as a human achievement.

Hjorth and Richardson speak about this larger cultural shift as a coming together of several factors, which at times are both complimentary and resistant. This is done in a rather long quote that is rather hard to summarize more succinctly as follows:

“In tandem with (yet also at times resistant to) the shift towards gamification, the playful or ludic attitude is at the core of an emergent ‘spreadable media’ culture (Jenkins et al. 2013). Spreadable media practices effectively blur the boundaries between production and consumption, and demand that we rethink our mediascapes not in accordance with old ‘closed’ dichotomies of user and producer, gamer and creator, but in terms of a flexible, paratextual, open–and often irreverent and playful–dynamic. In part, as Taylor indicates, this play turn has been generated by the infusion of gaming and ‘game-like’ features into our social lives, a trend that, as we have suggested, has been congruent with the merger of social media networks with personalised mobile media, and location-based or place-specific applications.” (Hjorth & Richardson 2014:140)

This quote effectively sums up much of what has been discussed up to this point with relation to location, new media, the movement toward a participatory web, and the cultural shifts that are occurring as a result of longer term movements in cultural practices and values. As technologies continue to see mainstream adoption that use and create meaning through location, both as a function of interfaces as well as with the continued creation/consumption by individuals, these technologies are theoretically likely to have some effect on our cultural norms, values, and practices. This is particularly evident in the case of the shift in gaming to integrate locational data, location based gaming as a spreadable media and the meshing of real world spaces with gaming spaces, and their contribution toward an overall playful cultural shift.

Location has always played a part in the social. From the idea of being social historically requiring co-presence, to technological advancements allowing social events to happen in real-time across the globe, location has in some way always been tied to the idea of social interaction. But what does location mean today? How is location used to be social in contemporary society and what effects does it have? Looking back to Lovegety, Tinder, and Bumble, we can see how developers have attempted to facilitate interactions between individuals in the real world using technology. There have been other apps outside of the dating genre that have also combined locational data with the hopes of facilitating social interaction in the real world between users, such as Niantic’s games Ingress and Pokémon Go. Hybridity is very much a part of these games and concepts, exemplified through its involvement with both the digital and real world spaces, participation transcends simple physical presence and is instead experienced across multiple forms of proximity. It is from this idea of hybridity, layering of the real world with a digital layer over top, and the concepts of the information society, that leads us to an overall redefinition of the concept of location. The redefinition need not be considered as something that was forced by a movement toward location based gaming, hook-up culture, location sharing, or any specific trend, but rather the cumulative ends of all of these social practices that relate to location having a particular and changing meaning in contemporary times as a result. By no means should this be considered an end point, but it seems to be the direction that we are currently heading, and should be examined more closely in order to properly analyze the trends and cultural shifts that are currently underway as a result of new and hybrid uses of technology and data.

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