The Mobile Phone in Everyday Life

Authors

Hannah Rippin, Darwin College, University of CambridgeFollow

Abstract

This paper explores how ordinary people use their mobile phones [cell phones in the U.S. and Canada] to interact in everyday life. These people are virtual selves, but the impact of their mobiles is very real. Mobile phone technology, more than any other, has the ability to envelop its users in a sphere of perpetual contact and instant access, touching every aspect of their daily lives.

The virtual self is connected to the world by information technologies that invade not only the home and office but the psyche. This can either trap or liberate people… By virtual self, I am referring to the person connected to the world and to others through electronic means such as the Internet, television and cell phones… [These] technologies get inside our heads, position our bodies and dictate our everyday lives. (Agger 2004:1)

In analysing the meaning and significance of mobile phone use in the everyday lives of users, three discrete yet interrelated questions arise:

• What role does the mobile play in the management of everyday life?
• How does the mobile affect the configuration of self?
• How does the mobile affect human interaction?

There is a paucity of micro-level research on users’ own interpretations and reflections of how their everyday life is fashioned through interaction by mobile calls or text messages. Therefore, I undertook a phenomenological approach using diaries, focus groups and interviews to describe and clarify how the mobile is incorporated into daily life.

The empirical data of this study reveal several insights which have not been developed in the existing literature. I have identified new behaviours which have been analysed as six discrete, yet interrelated, themes.

The co-configuration of the technology and the user have led to the production of new needs in terms of use, and this has had a profound effect on the ways users present themselves to others and conduct their social networks. The mobile has changed human capacity in terms of memory and concentration, whilst also producing new forms of emotional experiences such as duplicity and anxiety

Recommended Citation

Rippin, Hannah (2005) "The Mobile Phone in Everyday Life," Fast Capitalism: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 7.
DOI: 10.32855/1930-014X.1081
Available at: https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/fastcapitalism/vol1/iss1/7