Mobile Me: Young People, Sociality and the Mobile Phone

Abstract

This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM2006 ==> This project investigates how, why and with what effects children and young people are using mobile telephony in Australia. The aim of the project is to work closely with young users on a longitudinal basis to describe accurately the impact of mobile phones, without either over-determining or underestimating the social effects of this powerful technology. We also have a desire to assist our policy partner to respond to concerns and fears raised by young people about mobile communication. The project also responds to the current state of academic research in media and communication technologies, where aspects of media use theory suggest productive ways forward for conceptualising social activity with respect to contemporary technological superstructures of communication. With pilot testing complete, we are about to embark on the main study. It will involve young people and pre-teens from a variety of socio-political backgrounds as co-researchers in a 3-year review of the role of mobile communications in the development of social structures and friendship networks. We plan to pay particular attention to the impact of communicative mobility on disadvantaged sectors of the community, and on the ways in which social and educational information is deployed and used through mobile phones to support social cohesion and to pursue group advantage. Our project integrates information systems, cultural research and media inquiry to ask questions about the impacts of the mobile phone in relation to the social experience of young people. In particular it seeks to describe and model the ways in which social behaviours are informed and/ or supported by the presence and availability of mobile phones in young lives. The project hypothesises that such behaviours may be characterised as both positive and negative; with phones operating as tools for personal security management, for friendship building, but also for bullying and intimidation. There are several influential trends in thinking about mobility and technology in social contexts, all of which need to be noted in pursuing the current project. Briefly, these can be summed up through four trajectories: a) networks; b) the management of knowledge [through computational power]; c) the compression of time and space through ubiquity of contact; and d) the commercial imperative in application design. These factors have contributed to a communications paradigm where telecommunications has transformed from one-to-one, voice-to-voice, and point-to-point to one in which many people may be involved in a number of a variety of communication acts from a number of (known or unknown) locations. Moreover, the purpose of the telecommunications device is changing to include new practices including surveillance, security, demonstrations of status or belonging or community, entertainment, direct marketing, and forms of web-based mass communication such as broadcast media and blogging. The project methodology will test and reinforce child-centred, participatory research practices and outcomes. It is designed to elicit and interpret young peopleâ s and pre-teenâ s views on their communicative environment and to understand the mechanisms through which social relationships, information conduits, and knowledge networks are built and sustained. It is our intention, through the dissemination of our findings, to bring young people, educators and interested government agencies into a productive dialogue on the benefits and dangers of this pervasive technology.