The Importance of Mobile Phone to Young People

Teenagers of today constitute the first generation
growing up with mobile telephones. Studies have
shown that young people use mobile phones in ways
that are radically different from adults, in that they
focus on the expressive rather than the informative use.
Further, teenagers use their mobile phones
for social purposes rather than for co-coordinating and
making work more efficient.
In this paper, we present results from an
ethno methodologically inspired field study of mobile
telephone use among Swedish teenagers. Our results
show that the mobile phones often are used
collaboratively, in that the teenagers share the phone
and its content. These findings need to be considered
when designing new mobile technology for teenagers.
We therefore argue the necessity of grounding new
design in an understanding of teenagers’ everyday use
of mobile telephones.
COLLABORATIVE USE
Our main finding is that the mobile telephone is often
used collaboratively. Teenagers share information on
the phone, as well as the phone itself. We have made
numerous observations of teenagers browsing through
information on their friends’ phones, sometimes
reading aloud while doing it, or the owner her/himself
showing something on the mobile phone for someone
else. The information that is shared consists of stored
SMS- messages, and entries in the phone book. Two or
more persons can be involved in a phone call or in the
writing of an SMS-message (Short Message Service).
Below is an example from the field of what we call
collaborative use of one girl’s mobile phone:
Dialog 1: On a tram, downtown. Evening.
Three girls are sitting on a tram. One
girl (A) is writing an SMS-message. A
turns to B, who is sitting next to her,
gives B a light nudge, and says “hey“.
She shows the display to B. A deletes a
few letters, then continues to write the
message. She says with a whiny voice:
A: I don’t wanna send this
A reads aloud parts of her message:
A: “I want to have a home party. I’m
leaving soon you know.“…