We say where we are during phone calls in order to (addendum to this post) :
– mutually establish and share a spatio-temporal context. (Eric Laurier’s article)
– serves to establish relationships of mutual accountability and trust (Nicola green : whos watching whom p 32) . monitoring of location and activities in this instance serves both to cement personal or intimate relationships and to make an individuals activities transparent, visible and accountanle to both copresent and tele-present others
– information on whereabouts often serves to establish the grounds for the conversation in terms of constraints and sensitivities with regard to possible topic, privacym duration and so forth Geoff Cooper (in Browm, Green and Harper (Eds). Wireless World. 2002. p 26).