Occupying Another’s Digital Space: Privacy of Smartphone Users as a Situated Practice

A smartphone’s screen is commonly regarded as a private space, and the action of looking at it is usually considered a violation of one’s privacy both by researchers and designers. However, our study demonstrates how participants in the interaction themselves negotiate moment by moment and achieve an understanding of someone’s screen space as public or private. In this paper, we analyze the interactional sequences of uninvited looks at another participant’s phone. Drawing on visual ethnography and ethnomethodologically informed multimodal interaction analysis, we video-recorded and analyzed everyday interactions between friends and acquaintances. Our findings show that looking at someone’s smartphone display is often performed and oriented to as a resource in interaction rather than an invasion of privacy. We therefore characterize the interactional functions of gazes and glances at another’s screen. We also discuss the research and design implications of approaching privacy as a situated practice.