Culture
Serious Foursquare Users Interact With Public Space in a Totally Different Way
The technology can make it easier to approach strangers, and alter our sense of belonging.
In many ways, technology is chipping away at the public-ness of public space. Cell phones enable us to walk down the street while doing activities – answering email, fielding phone calls – that we've traditionally done in private places. WiFi has turned public parks into open-air cubicles. Personalized maps now deliver a million individual representations of a single shared streetscape.
The risk in all of this is that we experience less casual serendipity and fewer of the encounters with strangers that public spaces can create.