Keith N Hampton

I knew that there were local uses for new ICTs, but I never expected the true ingenuity of the Brits. The “dogging” craze is an interesting use of the Internet in itself (my colleague and student Cameron Marlow is doing some interesting work on the spread of syphilis as a result of sex chat rooms facilitating real world encounters), but “toothing” takes the cake. Unlike here in the U.S. where Bluetooth phones have yet to reach significant penetration, there appears to be a significant enough concentration of Bluetooth signals on England’s transit system that it has become a method of exchanging semi-anonymous flirtatious instant messages that result in casual sexual encounters. Read all about it in Wired