Departing Glances: A Sociotechnical Account of Leaving Grindr
Grindr is a popular location-based social networking application for smartphones, predominantly used by gay men. This study investigates why users leave Grindr. Drawing on interviews with 16 men who stopped using Grindr, this article reports on the varied definitions of leaving, focusing on what people report leaving, how they leave and what they say leaving means to them. We argue that leaving is not a singular moment, but a process involving layered social and technical acts – that understandings of and departures from location-based media are bound up with an individual’s location. Accounts of leaving Grindr destabilize normative definitions of both ‘Grindr’ and ‘leaving’, exposing a set of relational possibilities and spatial arrangements within and around which people move. We conclude with implications for the study of non-use and technological departure.
Departing Glances: A Sociotechnical Account of “Leaving” Grindr
On Grindr, a location-based social networking application aimed at gay men and their smartphones, the objective is to see and be seen. Within this context this study asks, “Why do users leave?” In contrast with previous literature on non-use that focuses on ubiquitous infrastructures or services, Grindr is a non-ubiquitous system that never the less has gained broad adoption with its target demographic. Drawing on qualitative interviews with sixteen men who have “left” Grindr, this paper explicates the site of departure, the means by which individuals leave, and the significance of their departure. Analysis of the diverse experiences shared challenges normative definitions of “leaving”, as well as of the application itself. I argue that leaving is not a singular moment, but an attenuated process involving…