Understanding the Use of Location Sharing Services on Social Networking Platforms in China

Abstract

Along with the development of information communication technology, there are more and more location sharing services on social networking platforms. Although China has the largest number of Internet users in the world, users just started to use location sharing services in the last couple of years. This study aims to have a better understanding of the use of location sharing services on social networking platforms in China. To address this, four research questions are presented and 43 in-depth face-to-face interviews are carried out in China. According to the results, the drivers and barriers for using location sharing services on social networking platforms were identified. Some of the key findings were presented as follows. Firstly, most users were concerned about privacy issues when they were using location sharing services on social networking platforms. Secondly, somewhat surprisingly, some of non-users indicated that they were not aware of the availability of the location sharing services on social networking platforms and they did not know how to use location sharing services. Last but not least, some interviewees wanted to use authority management to deal with private issues raised by the shared location information on social networking platforms.