Mobile Age: How Young People use their Mobiles

Young people do not spend hours on their mobiles running up bills, but make calls that are short and to the point, said Jane Vincent of the Digital World Research Centre (DWRC), University of Surrey, speaking at "Seeing, Understanding, Learning in the Mobile Age" (see UN story: Life in the Mobile Age).

Reporting on her work involving British young people between the ages of 11 and 16 years old (or 'teenies'), Vincent gave a rich account of behaviour with mobiles that contradicted media perceptions of chatty teenagers. 'Children had learned to use their mobile phones in ways that optimised their tariff. When away from home the mobile phone was used as a functional communications device; voice calls were kept to a minimum and text messages sent that used 160 characters and did not run into two messages. Chitchat was saved for later and done on the PC via MSN or on the home phone'.

Participants in the DWRC study (a full report is linked below) were asked to keep a one-day diary of their phone use. 67 completed diaries, and subsequently 44 kids were interviewed in a series of focus groups in schools, including some people who had filled in diaries.

The study found that the phone is primarily being used as a voice and text based device for making social arrangements and for safety, but not for connecting to information. Use also depended on available funds: when the money runs out there is no source of extra cash until an appointed date (often determined by the parent).

Games, cameras and other features while away time and provide fun. Some teenies are avid users of the camera/video but for their personal use only. Blue tooth and infra-red are used to exchange images for fun, but they are not sent over the network.

'What the next generation of mobiles might do, or even what the next mobile might do is of little interest – exploring what the current phone can do is of much more interest,' reported Vincent.

But she did see evidence of social value beyond functionality: showing off, having the right phone and being cool with your phone are all important factors for the teenies, as well as having a phone ‘like my mates’. It is also an intensely personal and intimate device: phones are kept under pillows and away from prying eyes, being shared by permission only. This is to stop parents reading text messages and siblings ‘stealing’ phones.

Vincent said that the value paradox in which the phone might be left at home for fear of losing it prevailed. Examples of this were on PE days when the phone was most likely to be stolen from the changing room or on visits to a theme park because ‘They fly out of your pocket on the roller coasters and then you’ve lost it for ever.’

Most teenies now get their phones as part of preparing for and then going to secondary school (age 10 or 11). The age, gender and maturity of the respondents appeared to have a significant impact on the amount they used the phone. They are used more by the older children and on average slightly more by the girls than the boys.

Parents use the phones to keep in touch. Fathers will text children, mostly daughters, with messages to say they are thinking of them, mothers are more direct and phone to check if they are OK or need help. Girls complained about their mothers but quite like the texts from fathers.

Akiba Cohen of Tel Aviv University, Israel, also addressed the subject of young people and mobile phones, looking at whether there were differences between how parents viewed their own children's phone use and other people's. Responding in part to the 'moral panic' seen in the media, he found that while 91% of parents believed that there should be budgetary restrictions on young people's use of phones, only 41% actually set them. 'This is much in line with the third person effect hypothesis, according to which people believe that the media do not affect them (and in this case – their children) but "others",' says Cohen. Overall, parents believed worse of other people's kids and expected poorer behaviour from other parents. Phones were generally regarded as positive within the family and part of being safe in a country as troubled as Israel.

Associated Link: 11 16 Mobile: Examining mobile phone and ICT use amongst children aged 11 to 16

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