UC Berkeley School of Information

Once upon a time, interacting anonymously online meant talking to strangers who could be anywhere in the world and knew very little about you, and about whom you knew very little. Thanks to GPS, ubiquitous mobile devices and an array of recent apps, however, we can now very easily connect anonymously with friends and strangers who are physically nearby. And as anybody who has read reports of (or experienced) cyberbullying or used apps like Grindr/Tinder/Scruff to meet, um, friends can tell you, local anonymity is very different. In this talk I will be reporting on several recent studies of activity on Facebook and Grindr that explore how location-awareness and interacting with local strangers affects the nature of our interactions and self-presentation. Results suggest that people may feel more free to discuss sensitive topics or explore stigmatized identities when anonymous, but that also being local increases their concerns about being recognized by others. Bio: Jeremy Birnholtz is an associate professor