Mobile Telephones

During the past decade, adolescents and even preadolescents have begun using mobile (or cellular) telephones in unexpected numbers. In the early stages of its development and commercialization, the technology was often framed around its use in business and professional settings. However, the range of use and the groups who adopted the device far exceeded these early expectations. In the case of mobile telephony, adoption by adolescents—reported in Asia, Scandinavia and the broader European context, and Israel, and to a lesser degree in the United States—was truly one of the surprising dimensions.

Adolescent adoption has changed the dynamics of the industry and has exposed some of the taken-for-granted assumptions about the role of teens in society. Adolescent use was made possible through the drive by teens to interact with their peers and to cautiously emancipate themselves from their parents. It has also led to the reformulation of the mobile telephone market in the form of prepaid subscriptions, the rise of texting, and the establishment of secondary industries such as ring tones, icons, and mobile phone covers. The adolescent market also has contributed to the convergence of mobile music devices, camera phones, networked gaming, and a wide variety of other functions into a single portable device.

Adolescence is the context in which the adoption of mobile communication took place. Adolescence—a social institution that is particular to industrialization—is a phase of life where individuals can emancipate themselves from parents. Emancipation is necessary because in a rapidly changing world, the experience of the child will necessarily be different from that of his or her parents.

The peer group can be seen as the midwife of emancipation and provides a setting in which adolescents can participate in decision making, explore the boundaries of acceptable behavior, and test themselves in a social area outside of the protective—and perhaps stifling—familial sphere. The mobile telephone is an exceptional tool for this task.

[Page 537]Several specific social impacts of the mobile telephone on the situation of adolescents are worthy of mention. They include (1) microcoordination, (2) facilitation of identity development and emancipation, (3) safety and control, (4) the culture of texting, (5) gendering of the technology, (6) the role of the device in dating and in the exploration of sexuality, and finally (7) the role of the device in the area of bullying and deviance.

Microcoordination. Perhaps the most profound effect of the mobile telephone—for adolescents as well as other groups—is its contribution to the coordination of people in modern society. In an era when daily life often includes movement between a wide variety of locations (home, school, a job, free-time activities, entertainment locales, etc.) the traditional system of geographically fixed telephone locations is not as functional as mobile telephones. The latter enable users to call directly, regardless of the location of the caller and the person called, which allows for far more nuanced real-time microcoordination.

Facilitation of identity development and emancipation. The peer group is an important influence as adolescents become emancipated from their home of orientation and develop an independent identity. In the context of the peer group, individuals can participate in decision making, the establishment of peer style, and so on.

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