"People don't bump": Sharing around mobile phones in close proximity

A large body of mobile phone sharing research focuses on creating new interaction techniques for sharing, and considers the usability of such applications and features whilst ignoring the context of their use, their adoption or appropriation. Therefore it is not known whether these technologies are used in practice or whether they really meet people's sharing needs. The aim of this research was to understand current real-world user sharing practices around mobile smart phones through the use of a diary study with 63 participants. We focused on close proximity sharing and discovered that new technologies to support this kind of sharing, for example bumping handsets together to exchange files, are not being widely used. More than half of all sharing via phones in this sample involved only telling, showing or passing the phone, though this often triggered further sharing. Possible explanations for this and their implications are discussed.