I'm here with my kids: investigating location sharing preferences of parents with young children

Abstract

In this paper, we present a preliminary investigation toward the design of mobile services aiming at supporting offline networking among parents with young children. In particular, we investigated the attitude toward mobile services exploiting location sharing to promote offline social gatherings. We made in-depth interviews with nine working parents (five fathers and four mothers) with children aged 0-8. From a qualitative analysis, five themes emerged: the tension between extending and maintaining the social network; the importance of catching opportunities over planning; the difference between parents' and children's needs; the dynamicity of parents' needs; the different attitudes of mothers and fathers. Although preliminary, we believe that the findings presented here may contribute to the ongoing discussion about how technology may support family wellbeing.