Cell phone Doc

This is a paper that our son Andrew prepared for his Last College Class at Ferris State University.  I think it is a good one and hope you all enjoy it

Qualitative Paper: The Cell Phone Culture                                          Andrew Conklin             

             

Introduction:

These past two decades have seen many technological breakthroughs that have shaped the culture of the United States. In the 90’s, the introduction of personal computers and the internet has swept across the nation, bringing email, blogging, and chat rooms. While all of these technologies marked widespread cultural shifts of the 90’s, there are few technologies that have changed the 2000 culture more than that of the mobile phone.

Mobile phones, or cell phones, have brought a new era of communication to this world. Phones have evolved from simple microphone and receiver to an abundant array of features: cameras, global positioning devices, computers, gaming consoles, typewriters, and televisions. Mobile companies have expanded on these costumer demands and developed a tool that has many uses.

While cell phones span across many cultures worldwide, it plays the largest role in shaping the culture of the youth. A whopping 45 percent of the total population of teen cell phone users in the United States claim that the cell phone is the key of their social life (Bauerlein) with 80 percent of the total teen population having cell phones (Survey). To the younger generations, not having a cell phone means you are out of the loop and uncool, alienated from the texts and calls of their peers.

As with  television during its era, culturally shaping technologies are not met without apprehension. Negative impact of cell phones have sparked concern from parents to skepticism and worry from the older generations. Even with the plethora of knowledge the internet/cell phone combinations has provided, this generation of youth has been dubbed  the “dumbest generation” by English professor Mark Bauerlein. Critics of the cell phone are quick to point out that cell phones host a magnitude of problems – distraction while driving, cheating at school. The critics worry that the 24/7 connectivity with their friends has evolved to everyone focusing on peer consciences, while civil awareness and other studies are often overlooked and deemed unimportant (Bauerlein). The conversations that  youth hold nowadays may be great in number, critics claim, but they lack the depth that was seen in earlier generations.

On the other hand, the cell phone supporters clam there is a great future in the connected wireless world. They claim that is no denying the fact that the hyper connectivity of the youth are able to perform duties with efficiency and effectiveness. A group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology were able to find ten weather balloons hidden across the United States in 9 hours using only the internet and social networking cites (Johnson).

So what’s the answer to the case of the cell phone culture? An anthropology research into the matters should give me an answer. My study includes observing a section of youth in Grand Rapids in their natural habitat, the shopping mall, while writing personal narratives on what is viewed.

The Research Process:

To properly do a research on a different culture, it is important first to take steps to separate myself from my previous culture. Using a cultural relativism as a view point will allow me to take a step back from my own culture and observe the cell phone society without bias. With this mindset, the analyzing of how my research should be conducted began.

The first thing a successful research into a culture is a population that represents a wide and diverse range of people. Shopping malls provide a wide variety of people with a good sample of race and age groups. To represent the Grand Rapids area well enough, my research was conducted on the west side of town, Grandville Mall, and the east side of town Woodland Mall for two hours apiece. I also made sure that there would be times that the youth would be at the malls, after school Friday and on the weekend.

After coming up with a large enough sample size, the next step is to define who exactly the new cell phone culture represents. Cell phone is a technology that is widely used and spans across cultures due to its usefulness. The difference, I believe, is that the people from the cell phone culture use the cell phone more profoundly, and it is more intertwined with their life. The cell phone is a symbol of status and identity, while the regular culture sees it as just a gadget. My understanding is that the cell phone culture is largely made up of the youthful people, ranging between early teenagers to late twenty-early thirty year-olds.

The features that will be identified as actions of the cell phone culture will be my opinions and questions will arise with new information. To these questions, my answers will be hypotheses that make sense to my understanding. I will compare them to valid studies that were previously used to identify this society in order to explain them.

As the research has come to an end, my findings confirmed that cell phones  have become more than just a social tool. They also have symbolic meaning. The cell-phone culture is dictated by two factors that hold importance: age and gender.

Cell phones as a Symbol:

In the younger generations cell phones hold much more significance than social networking tools, they have become  identifiable as symbol of social status.

Cell phones are of course, used to connect socially, that function in and of itself can increase ones status. However, one of my observations at the mall was that the younger generation often carried their cell phone in their hand, even when it is not in use, rather than store it away in a pocket. It could that they were waiting on a call or a text, but it is my belief that they were holding it out to show off their cell phone.

This hypotheses comes from the fact that arm that the cell phone was often flexed, not hanging down at the side as if the cell phone was not important. Women often had the arm flexed so the cell phone was held at the bosom level, while males had it flexed at so it their waist line when not in use. Also, women also more likely to text close to body at the bosom level also, and men often text away from their bodies at waist level. These two areas of the body are areas of focus to the opposite sex and are there to draw attention to those areas, albeit the action may be subconscious.

Cell phones also are a symbol of wealth. Cell phone companies have marketed a wide variety of phones that come at different prices based on function or style of phone. The more popular the phone is, the more expensive it most likely is. Having  more functions also mean a more expensive cell phone plan. This example of status can be seen with the iPhone, that kids see as popular but is too expensive to own (Survey).

Age:             

              Age has a large part in how cell phones are used and the number of people using cell phones. As the age of the person increases, two things happen. The older age groups are less represented in the cell phone culture. This may be due to the familiarity of the cell phone technology. The younger generation was born in the early 90’s right when the cell phones were made for the public. Adults who were born in or before the 80’s did not grow up with the technology and lack the familiarity from using the product all their lives like the younger generation.

Another reason why there is more cell phone usage by the younger generation is because this is the point in their life where there is a greater focus on social needs. According to Maslow Social Hierarchy of Needs, there are five stages of need: physiological, safety, social, esteem, self actualization. The stages are accumulative; you need to fill physiological needs first before you can advance to security needs, and so on. In the younger generations, most of their physiological and safety needs are met. Most youths have a family that provides food, sleep and shelter. When people get older, however, there is a great need to establish their own family, to fulfill their esteem needs. But in order to advance, they need to become self sufficient and their hierarchy of need may backslide a bit to fill their other needs, like finding a place to live or a job. This would explain why older people have less cell-phone usage, because they are focusing on different needs besides social (Wagner). 

The other factor is that the younger a person is, the more cell phone functions are used. It is the opposite for the older age groups, the function become more specialized as the age group increases. For example, a high school school student uses their phones for everything, talking, texting, camera, internet, music, videos, and gaming, while an adult mom may only use the cell-phone for texting to keep in touch with her daughter.

Marketing has also focused on how cell phones are used. The functions, such as music and gaming, were produced to appeal to the younger generation and not the older one. The reason why marketing is focused on the younger generation is simple, because they are more likely to obtain money from their parents that are well established in their life than a young adult that is struggling to find a job.

My opinion, however, is that there is going to be an increased population of older cell phone users in the next decade. This reason is because the heavy use of cell phones by the younger generations will continue their cell phone trends as they get older. The younger generation has become more dependent on the cell phone functions. This would follow the example of the television, another technology that shaped culture of its generation, is used by almost every generation since its introduction.

Gender:

Focusing on the younger generation's use of the multiple functions a cell phone has to offer, my observation is that gender dictates how that person uses their cell phones. While both male and females use cell phones to talk and text, the manner in which they use their cell phone's other functions is very different.

For males, cell phone is used as a universal tool. Males are much more likely to use the broad array of functions in their cell phones then females are. Males use their cell phones and GPS, television, internet, games, and music. This is not to say that females don’t use these functions also, but from my observation, males utilize them more. Males are much more likely to purchase smart phones and palm pilots than females to utilize the additional capabilities and to use it as a tool to do business and to organize.

The reason why males utilize the cell-phones for functions other than socialization can be explained by the male's focus on social status though hierarchy. According to Michael Connor, males have a  need for leadership and to establish a chain of command. A person that is well adept at mastering multiple functions is more capable and efficient and is more likely to be seen as a leader than a person that does not. This can explain why males stress having cell-phones that have multiple functions.

For females, cell phone usage is a different story. Females are more likely to have a phone than males. That is because cell phones increase female social status  more than they do for males. Social status for women is determined by how many connections or ‘friends’ she is familiar socially with. My observations from my memory in high school, women that were similar in fashion and ideas were more popular individually if their social group was larger, while women that sought to be individual were often alienated socially. This explains why cell phones are so needed to establish a network to share ideas.

              Cell phones are also  important by expanding the mediums available to hold conversation. Females can carry on multiple conversations at the same time (Connor). Cell phones add an additional medium for conversations to travel. For example a woman can be talking with her friend, texting a different conversation with another, while able to hold a conversation with a person that might call. This ability to hold conversations has increased three fold due to cell phones, and the people conversing don’t even need to be in the same room.

Cell phones have become a status symbol too, in women circles. As mentioned above, women hold social connection to their friends much more importantly then males do. Women use cell phones to establish their identity though the accessories they can buy for their phone. One of my observations is that women are more likely to desire accessories for their phones, like trinkets, style covers, protectors — to match the other females they are with.

Another observation in the mall that made me conclude that cell phones are used by women to identify with other women, is the association between cell phones and purses. There are two types of women in the mall, women that carried their cell phones in their hand, or women that carried purses. The women that carried cell phones were likely from middle school age to early high school, while the women with purses fell into the later high school years and college age. In my time, purses existed  My hypothesis is that cell phones are becoming a sign of status, much like purses were a long time ago. My prediction is that purses will be phased out and replaced cell phones in younger generations.

Conclusion:

There is no denying that the cell phone has impacted the future with it's introduction. Critics of cell phones state that it’s a blight on intelligence, while the supporters see it as a key to connecting minds. After my research, I tend to agree with the supporters. The critics of the cell phone population are worried that about the degrading of culture and not the potential that cell phones are creating.

The critics state that studies show English language will fall apart and grammar will fall into shambles, and they may be correct. Instead of criticizing the cell phone generations, however, the critics should be taking steps to integrate the standards they claim are important into a format that the cell phone population will use. For instance, if people are worried  that history and culture are going to be destroyed by the growing focus on social conversation, they should make a cell phone trivia game on history that would allow  cell phone friends to join together. If  one is worried about grammar, make a cell phone texting paper competition where one will be graded on grammar and speed. There are many ways to preserve important culture standards within different mediums. Television is a fine example how both history and culture is preserved though a different medium.

Bibliography

Amendola, A. F. (November 2008). Can You Hear Me Now?: The Myths Surrounding Cell Phone Use while Driving and Connecticut's Failed Attempt at a Remedy. Connecticut Law Review. 41(1), 339-79.

Bauerlein, M. (October 12 2009). Generation Text. America { 2009}v. 201 no9
(October 12 2009) p. 20-2 

Connor, M. (n.d.). Understanding The Differences Between Men and Women. Oregon Counseling, Psychotherapy, Counseling, Therapy, Information, Education, Referral, Research. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.oregoncounseling.org/ArticlesPapers/Documents/DifferencesMenWomen.htm

Johnson, B. (2009, December 7). MIT team wins Darpa's treasure hunt in less than one day | Technology | guardian.co.uk . Latest news, comment and reviews from the Guardian. Retrieved December 7, 2009, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/07/darpa-challenge
 

Mahany, B. (2009, May 25). Digital puberty: A new rite of passage. Times Record News. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2009/jun/25/digital-puberty-new-rite-passage/

"Survey: Teens' Cell Phones Indispensible - CBS News." Breaking News Headlines: Business, Entertainment & World News - CBS News. CNET News, 15 Aug. 2008. Web. 7 Dec. 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/15/tech/cnettechnews/main4449232.shtml

Wagner, K. V. (n.d.). Hierarchy of Needs - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Psychology - Student Resources - Psychology Articles. Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm