This paper is based on a study of users experiences and practices of meeting potential new partners online through the use of the mobile dating service Tinder. The aim of the study is to explore how users experience design features and functionalities for online dating practices. By exploring the use of functionalities and features in the location-based mobile application Tinder, we offer a broad understanding of the relationship between designed functionalities and dating practices that users experience through these features. The empirical material presented in the paper is drawn from a study based on a mixed method approach, combining an initial observational study, an online survey, with focus group interviews. Four specific designed functions are highlighted in our empirical data: the connection with Facebook, the profile cards of users, the swipe-centered mutual match function, and geographical proximity. These functions contribute to the specific user experiences of control and reward. Our findings indicate that online dating practices are formed by an inseparable interplay of design functionalities, users attitudes and the use of specific mobile applications that taken together contributes to the overall online dating experiences.

In this paper we argue for the need of a methodological framework for analysing the design of websites from a norm-critical perspective. Identifying some issues and challenges in previous studies on norms and values in interface design we suggest an approach for analysing norms in websites and user interfaces based on sociological and cultural perspectives on design. Approaching norms in interface design we understand design in terms of resources for interaction, involving four aspects of interaction: cultural representations, technology, interactivity, and context.

What social practices are people involved when staying in a game café? What kind of social setting is the game café? What are the attitudes towards playing computer games at home and in public among parents? What are the media representations of co-located game playing in public? What are the sensory experiences of playing co-located game play in public? This dissertation gives a descriptive and analytical account of the contexts and meanings of playing co-located computer games in public settings such as game cafés and LAN parties. The overall aim with the dissertation is to describe and investigate the social and cultural meanings and contexts of playing computer games in a game café. The research questions have been investigated in four empirical studies.

The dissertation shows that people are involved in various social practices and activities aimed at supporting and maintaining social relationships among friends and peers. The game café can be seen as a third place, as it used by players for recreation and an escape from the pressure of home and school, a place which feels like home, is familiar and welcoming. However the game café is a limited third place used by young men who likes to play online and network games. The dissertation also shows how the social environment provides for specific sensory experiences. These sensory experiences involve sitting together side by side slapping each other’s shoulders and legs, eating candies and drinking sodas, listening to music. The representations of co-located game playing in public reproduce traditional gender roles where professional gamers are represented by men and causal gamers are represented by women (and men) as well as construct youth as party lovers. The study also suggests that parents’ attitudes towards their children playing games in public draw on traditional values and ideas about children’s play and social relationships.

This study explores how rationalization logic and rationalization processes influence digital gaming by looking at how players value and manage the time they spend on games. The study is framed in a discussion of leisure time, critical theories of computation and rationalization theory. Qualitative interview data is used in an inductive and phenomenology inspired approach. The results show two frames of understanding of gaming. First, games are perceived as media products and playing as a waste of time. Secondly, digital gaming is a hobby, a social activity highly valued within the framework of a rational time economy. We conclude that even though we are seeing a rationalization of leisure time in gaming, that rationalization process must be understood in the context of individualization within the new network society. This means that players are involved in a 'rational individualization' process where their management of leisure time and gaming activities are part of an ongoing identity project.

In this article we will discuss players’ experience of computer games in terms of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. We discuss how senses shape and give meaning to players’ game play experiences in the game café and a mass LAN party. We also discuss how the social environments in which games are played impact on the experience of playing games. The data is drawn on a field study of public gameplay in a game café and a mass LAN party in Sweden. We conclude by highlighting that the social atmosphere is key to understanding public game play experiences.

In this article we discuss the sensory experiences of playing computer games by exploring the sight, the sound, the taste, smell, and touch of games. We reflect on how senses and the social atmosphere gives meaning to players’ experiences of playing computer games in two co-located public settings, a game café and a mass LAN party. This discussion is related to a more general discussion concerning what it means to participate and play online and network games in a game café and a mass LAN party. The discussion is based on a field study in Sweden. We conclude by highlighting the different experiences of playing computer games and participating in those colocated game settings. In the game café playing computer games is a rather ordinary and mundane activity while playing games in the mass LAN party is to a large extent a sensational and extra ordinary event.

This article investigates the meaning and function of the game café as a ‘Third place’ for boys and young men who play games in a game café. As there has been relatively little focus on game cafés in Western Europe as compared to studies of game cafés in Asia this paper examines the meaning and function of a game café in Sweden. This is achieved through an ethnographic study of a game café in central Stockholm. The author argues that the game café functions as a public place of their own. This means that for this group the game café is an escape from the moral judgments and parental restrictions and control at home. It also provides young men with a local hang out to maintain, negotiate and establish relationships with friends, peers and like minded through gaming. This place is a rather restricted third place which fosters interaction within a homogenous community of people of the same gender and age group. Therefore the game café shares more similarities with a sport club than a traditional café.

This study explores how co-located computer game play in public is valued and constructed by mass media, parents, and staff in a Swedish context. The article argues that by viewing co-located game playing in public as a youth leisure activity, we can reach a fuller understanding of the norms and values surrounding computer game playing as a social phenomenon. Data was collected through interviews with parents and staff and by analyzing articles in Swedish newspapers. Findings show that newspaper reports on game cafés and LAN parties construct game playing as a sport or fun. These constructions reproduce gender stereotypes. Parents’ attitudes towards public game play are both positive and negative and constructed around themes such as problematic or non problematic game playing. Staff and parent discourses on game playing reflect a wider concern reading leisure and youth, such as activities young people should be engaged in at their leisure.