ABSTRACT
Mobile media are changing everyday social practices, including modes of travel and the way social networks are developed, sustained, and transformed. This chapter present findings from an explorative study of urban travelers in Oslo, drawing on structuration theory and social practice theory. Findings show that travel routines are becoming increasingly entangled with the use of personal and social media in everyday life. Many young travelers have social relationships that are embedded in an “omnipresent” stream of mediated communication, changing the content and experience of being on the move. Communication practices appear to be moving toward a real-time mode, where mundane pictures of objects encountered in the flux of everyday life, spontaneous reflections, discussion, and web stories are continually produced and circulated as part of the maintenance of social networks. Partly this seems to be founded on social norms and expectations for high frequent communication within networks of close friends. However, personal and social media is also actively influencing on how people plan and coordinate various social gatherings, as well as on the meaning given to these afterwards.
