The YUTPA framework takes 4 dimensions into account, not only time and place but also the possibility to act and the way human beings relate to each other. These 4 dimensions define how people make trade-offs and perform presence themselves to establish trust in the current network society. YUTPA is the acronym for ‘being with You in Unity of Time, Place and Action’. When any one of the 4 dimensions decreases through the use of technology, human beings adapt by filling the gap by processes of attribution and by focusing on intensity in other dimensions. In the trade-off between the 4 dimensions, not only presence is shaped, but also the conditions for potential trust are created. Different presence configurations offer different possibilities for trust to emerge (Nevejan 2009) (Fig. 1).
YUTPA and presence
In this paper, social structures are described as specific configurations of presence design through which potential trust emerges. Traditionally social structures are based on sharing a unity of time, place and action with others. Today new configurations of this unity are accepted as real communication by millions of people around the globe. The YUTPA framework depicts these new configurations.
