BLABLACAR APP

A HITCHHIKING COMMUNITY

Abstract

This work constitutes an exploratory research with an ethnographic approach carried out from the mini-observation of the interaction between users of the digital platform BlaBlaCar. In its electronic portal, the application is defined as “the largest ride app in the world. We connect people going to the same destination”. Through it, during the time and space interval of the paid ride, strangers build interpersonal dynamics that would not have happened without the intervention of this digital mediator. In this tour, the Pelotas / RS x Porto Alegre / RS route (round trip) was investigated, during 04 trips made between July 2018 to December 2019, addressing the interaction among 11 people, divided into 04 different groups, with only the observer remaining. The experiment diagnosed that the researched application promotes sociality through the sharing of experiences between drivers and hitchhikers, at the same time that it works as an alternative to reduce costs along the route of the wanted route. This scenario problematizes the boundaries in the area of economic provision and care, bringing to the center of the debate the pricing of private life mediated by collaborative consumption, which is daily intensified in face of new ways of socialization brought by digital reality.