Ling and Yitri examines 3 specific age groups within Norway and their use of the mobile phones. Norway provides the ideal sample population as its citizens have one of the highest adoption rates for cell phone use. Whats most intriguing about this specific article is that Ling and Yitri is not so much concerned with how much much cell phone are used within each specific age group but rather the manner in which it is used and the motivations behind its usage.
In terms of methodology, they gathered subjects of 4 age groups that ranged from teenagers to individuals who were well into adulthood. Interviews were conducted through a series of 10 interviews. The motivations Ling and Yitri identified were concerns for security, a need to coordinate, and hyper coordination.
The idea of safety and motivations to assure safety was most expressed among the older users of mobile phones. An example of this is the possibility of car accidents or natural disasters occurring with one needing an immediate means to communicate or seek help. It is only logical for the older age group to express this type of concern as they most likely have dependents and thus the idea of safety becomes more important to them.
In terms of the potential to coordinate, the middle age groups were most drawn to cell phones as a result of this. An example of this is when someone is stuck in traffic and call to tell the person they are meeting that they are going to be late. This is perhaps the most practical aspect of cellphone usage and appropriate to those in the middle age groups who perhaps use cell phones for work.
Finally, the most interesting feature in this study is the idea of hyper coordination. Hyper coordination does not only describe their use of the device to coordinate events with their peers but also include the idea of self expression through their usage. The teenage years are perhaps the key to establishing a sense of an autonomous self. Teens are in a constant attempt to distance themselves from their parents as they are drawing more likeliness to their peers. Their use of the cell phone is the perfect example of this as they use it as a means to connect with friends and express a sense of social belonging. Furthermore, Yitri and Ling state that the cell phone allows teens to form intimate relationships through a new medium. As a whole, they term this expression of self and use of the cell phone for the sake connectivity as hyper coordination.
Discussion Question.
1. One of the interesting things that the researchers predict is that the younger generation who were most willing to adopt the cell phone will continue to use the technology in dynamic ways in the future. Do you believe that the type of usage is natural with age or do you think that the age in which adoption occurs influences the nature of the usage. In other words, when the current young generation gets old, do you think they'll use the phone for safety purposes like the current adults or do you think they'll use it in more dynamic ways because they adopted the technology earlier?
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4 comments:
I think that kids who grew up with cell phones will continue to use them extensively though out their adult lives, as well. I think this will happen primarily because having been familiarized with mobile technology at such young ages now, it seems a natural part of everyday life. When I was in junior high, I remember it being very rare that my friends had their own cell phones. However, nowadays kids even younger have cell phones. Yet the thing is, where I would have found this outrageous years ago to hear that elementary school kids have cellphones, I now can see the parental reasoning behind it and it actually makes sense. Mobile technology has worked its way into the mainstream lifestyle over the years and now it has almost become a safety concern to live in this day and age without a cell phone. This is why I think Kids growing up with access to mobile technology will continue to rely heavily on it- because it functions as part of everyday life.
I believe that people who use phones in various ways today will continue to use them as they do. There is no evidence to suggest that people will revert from their current use of the technology.
What will be interesting is to see how the current information generation adapts to NEW technologies as we age. Will we still easily adapt to the technologies or will we struggle to grasp them as many older people have struggled with today's technologies.
There probably comes a time when we get so used to a certain technology that we see no need for improvement. I think we will eventually be that generation that is getting laughed at by those darn kids and their gadgets.
I think that as the current young generation reaches adulthood, they will start to use their cell phones for other reasons such as for safety. But I don't think that they would be limited to using their cell phones for safety purposes only. Because they became familiar with cellphones at an earlier age, I believe that the current young generation will find more dynamic ways to use the technology. For example, young college students use their phones to text message, play music, check email, go online, take pictures, and record videos whereas the older generation are unfamiliar with the more tech-savvy phones out there. I can only imagine what the current younger generation will be able to do with their phones as they get older and technology advances.
Similar to Sarah's view, I don't see these different cell phone usages as mutually exclusive based on age. Interestingly though, I think they may be mutually exclusive based on when the technology was adopted. So while the people who adopted cell phone use in the later stages of their lives may only use them for 1 of these functions (say safety), those that adopted cell usage at an early stage might use them for all of the given reasons.
Because of this I expect rising generations not to stop using mobile devices in one way in place of another, but to keep adding to their repertoire of usages. I also think this will build generationally as both the technology improves and newer generations are socialized at a younger age to the uses adopted by the previous generation.
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