Taking and sharing photographs of restaurant food via social media and the blurring of online-offline consumer leisure experiences

This paper explores consumer motivations for the taking and sharing of photographs of restaurant food online. In particular, it examines consumer-generated images of food across social media sites as part of a wider trend towards the sharing of experiences (and photographs) online. Sharing behaviour has been linked to levels of online community participation, engagement and commitment (Nov and Ye, 2008) and the expression of creative ability in terms of photograph composition and skill (Cook et al, 2009; Xu and Bailey, 2010). Offline, motivations for taking and sharing photographs with others have received academic research interest in a number of contexts (for example: mobile phone users-Chua et al, 2009; tourist photographs-Belk and Joyce, 2011; photographing natural disasters-Owen, 2013). Of particular interest to this study has been research into the social use of image-sharing as a means of creating and maintaining social relationships and self-presentation (Van House et al, 2005; Marcus, 2015; Sheldon and Bryant, 2016) in line with the idea of socially-constructed realities. The paper is based on the results of an online, semi-structured questionnaire survey completed by 67 international respondents of mixed genders and age groups (in line with standard research ethics procedures). Responses were analysed via descriptive statistics and a thematic review. The anonymised results provide initial insights into the extent to which photographs of restaurant food posted on social media were perceived to: reflect people's lifestyles; act as tools to maintain social relationships and facilitate the sharing of personal experiences; and contribute to the presentation of 'self' (Goffman, 1978). Overall, the findings draw attention to ways in which the taking and sharing of photographs of restaurant food online represent or distort offline leisure experiences. A number of questions are raised by the findings, not least whether participation in social media itself as a leisure activity supersedes, or at least impacts on, the 'lived experience' (Denzin, 1985) of other offline leisure activities (such as 'eating out'). In the words of one of the respondents in this study, 'the longer you spend time taking photos, the more likely the food will be cold'. Bibliography • Belk, R., & Hsiu-yen Yeh, J. (2011). Tourist photographs: signs of self. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 5(4), 345-353. • Chua, A. Y., Lee, C. S., Goh, D. H. L., & Ang, R. P. (2009, November). Motivations for media sharing among mobile phone users. In Digital Information Management, 2009. ICDIM 2009. Fourth International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE. • Cook, E., Teasley, S. D., & Ackerman, M. S. (2009, May). Contribution, commercialization & audience: understanding participation in an online creative community. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work (pp. 41-50). ACM. • Denzin, N. K. (1985). Emotion as Lived Experience. Symbolic Interaction, 8(2), 223-240. • Goffman, E. (1978). The presentation of self in everyday life (p. 56). Harmondsworth. • Marcus, S.R. (2015) Picturing ourselves into being: assessing identity, sociality and visuality on Instagram. Presented at the International Communication Association conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico. • Nov, O., & Ye, C. (2008). Community photo sharing: Motivational and structural antecedents. ICIS 2008 Proceedings, 91. • Owen, D. M. (2013). Citizen Photojournalism: Motivations for Photographing a Natural Disaster and Sharing the Photos on the Web (Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron). • Sheldon, P., & Bryant, K. (2016). Instagram: Motives for its use and relationship to narcissism and contextual age. Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 89-97. • Van House, N., Davis, M., Ames, M., Finn, M., & Viswanathan, V. (2005, April). The uses of personal networked digital imaging: an empirical study of cameraphone photos and sharing. In CHI'05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 1853-1856). ACM. • Xu, A., & Bailey, B. (2012, February). What do you think?: a case study of benefit, expectation, and interaction in a large online critique community. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 295-304). ACM

Why young consumers are not open to mobile marketing communications

This paper explores young people's motivations for using mobile phones. Older adolescents' everyday use of traditional and new forms of mediated communication were explored in the context of their everyday lives, with data generated from self-completion questionnaires, diaries and mini focus groups. The findings confirm the universal appeal of mobile phones to a youth audience. Social and entertainment-related motivations dominated, while information and commercially orientated contact were less appealing. While marketers are excited by the reach and possibilities for personalisation offered by mobile phones, young people associated commercial appropriation of this medium with irritation, intrusion and mistrust. In other words, while marketers celebrated mobile phones as a 'brand in the hand' of youth markets, young people themselves valued their mobiles as a 'friend in the hand'. This suggests that the way forward for mobile marketing communications is not seeking or pretending to be young consumers' friend, butrather offering content that helps them maintain or develop the personal friendships that matter to them

Facilitating Mobile Music Sharing and Social Interaction with Push!Music

Push!Music is a novel mobile music listening and sharing system, where users automatically receive songs that have autonomously recommended themselves from nearby players depending on similar listening behaviour and music history. Push!Music also enables users to wirelessly send songs between each other as personal recommendations. We conducted a two-week preliminary user study of Push!Music, where a group of five friends used the application in their everyday life. We learned for example that the shared music in Push!Music became a start for social interaction and that received songs in general were highly appreciated and could be looked upon as ‘treats’

Two Screen Viewing and Social Relationships. Exploring the invisible backchannel of TV viewing

Use of social networks to create a real-time backchannel of\ud communication among viewers of television programs has been documented, and has been termed “two-screen viewing,” with one screen devoted to the program being watched, and a second screen (usually a laptop, tablet, or cell/mobile\ud phone) devoted to maintaining the backchannel. Prior research has examined twoscreen viewing through content analysis of social media posts. However, little has been done to explore the way in which two screen viewing qualitatively changes the viewing experience, or to understand how this behavior contributes to the construction or maintenance of social relationships. Couch (1992) noted that social interaction require a shared focus, a social objective, and congruent functional identities. The first screen program provides the shared focus. Using online interviews, this small pilot project seeks to discover whether social objectives and congruent functional identities are established through two-screen viewing. That is, the study explores how one might go about determining whether this communication actually contributes to social relationships or serves some other, asocial purpose. The present study is a small pilot project only. Preliminary\ud data suggest that there are two types of two-screen viewing defined by different degrees of visible and invisible online practice

The Importance of Transparency and Willingness to Share Personal Information

This study investigates the extent to which individuals are willing to share their sensitive personal information with companies. The study examines whether skepticism can influence willingness to share information. Additionally, it seeks to determine whether transparency can moderate the relationship between skepticism and willingness to share and whether 1) companies perceived motives, 2) individual’s prior privacy violations, 3) individuals’ propensity to take risks, and 4) individuals self-efficacy act as antecedents of skepticism. Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression is used to examine the relationships between all the factors. The findings indicate that skepticism does have a negative impact on willingness to share personal information and that transparency can reduce skepticis

Disposition toward privacy and information disclosure in the context of emerging health technologies.

ObjectiveWe sought to present a model of privacy disposition and its development based on qualitative research on privacy considerations in the context of emerging health technologies.Materials and methodsWe spoke to 108 participants across 44 interviews and 9 focus groups to understand the range of ways in which individuals value (or do not value) control over their health information. Transcripts of interviews and focus groups were systematically coded and analyzed in ATLAS.ti for privacy considerations expressed by respondents.ResultsThree key findings from the qualitative data suggest a model of privacy disposition. First, participants described privacy related behavior as both contextual and habitual. Second, there are motivations for and deterrents to sharing personal information that do not fit into the analytical categories of risks and benefits. Third, philosophies of privacy, often described as attitudes toward privacy, should be classified as a subtype of motivation or deterrent.DiscussionThis qualitative analysis suggests a simple but potentially powerful conceptual model of privacy disposition, or what makes a person more or less private. Components of privacy disposition are identifiable and measurable through self-report and therefore amenable to operationalization and further quantitative inquiry.ConclusionsWe propose this model as the basis for a psychometric instrument that can be used to identify types of privacy dispositions, with potential applications in research, clinical practice, system design, and policy