The phone connection: A qualitative exploration of how belongingness and social identification relate to mobile phone use amongst Australian youth

Mobile phone use is a prevalent behaviour amongst youth; however, there is little research to determine psychological influences on mobile phone use. This paper reports the results of a qualitative exploration into social psychological factors relating to young people's mobile phone use. Focus groups were conducted with 32 participants, aged between 16 and 24 years. Three major themes, connectedness, belonging and social identity, were explored in relation to young people's mobile phone use. Easy contact with others when using a mobile phone facilitated connectedness between people. A need to remain connected emerged in participants' descriptions of their mobile phone use. Consequently, data were analysed for factors underpinning people's desire to be connected. It emerged that mobile phones were used to enhance feelings of belonging amongst youth. Additionally, group norms influenced mobile phone behaviour indicating that social identity processes are related to mobile phone use. Results in the study provide a foundation upon which to investigate further the relationship between mobile phone use and psychological factors impacting young people's social development. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  S. Cassidy.  Using social identity to explore the link between a decline in adolescent smoking and an increase in mobile phone use , 2006 .

[2]  Kipling D. Williams,et al.  R U There? Ostracism by Cell Phone Text Messages. , 2004 .

[3]  M. Hogg,et al.  Improving Attitude-Behavior Correspondence Through Exposure to Normative Support From a Salient Ingroup , 2002 .

[4]  James E. Katz,et al.  Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements: The Co-creation of Mobile Communication’s Public Meaning , 2005 .

[5]  S. Walsh,et al.  Ring, Ring, Why Did I Make that Call? Mobile Phone Beliefs and Behaviour Among Australian University Students , 2006 .

[6]  Marilynn B. Brewer,et al.  Social Exclusion and Selective Memory: How the Need to belong Influences Memory for Social Events , 2000 .

[7]  Katherine M. White,et al.  An exploration of the interplay between psychological sense of community, social identification and salience , 2005 .

[8]  M. Brewer.  The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time , 1991 .

[9]  J. Michell.  The place of qualitative research in psychology , 2004 .

[10]  Tony Charlton,et al.  Mobile telephone ownership and usage among 10- and 11-year-olds , 2002 .

[11]  James G. Phillips,et al.  Psychological Predictors of Problem Mobile Phone Use , 2005, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[12]  N. Hopkins.  Peer group processes and adolescent health-related behaviour: More than ‘peer group pressure’? , 1994 .

[13]  Ran Wei,et al.  Staying connected while on the move , 2006, New Media Soc..

[14]  Bertjan Doosje,et al.  Self and social identity. , 2002, Annual review of psychology.

[15]  Rich Ling,et al.  "We will be reached": the use of mobile telephony among Norwegian youth , 2000, Inf. Technol. People.

[16]  S. Walsh,et al.  Me, my mobile, and I : the role of self- and prototypical identity influences in the prediction of mobile phone behavior , 2007 .

[17]  J. Smetana,et al.  Adolescent development in interpersonal and societal contexts. , 2006, Annual review of psychology.

[18]  Yusuf Ziya Özcan,et al.  Research Note: A Need or a Status Symbol? , 2003 .

[19]  Thomas E. Ruggiero.  Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 21st Century , 2000 .

[20]  R. Baumeister,et al.  The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. , 1995, Psychological bulletin.

[21]  L. Srivastava,et al.  Mobile phones and the evolution of social behaviour , 2005, Behav. Inf. Technol..

[22]  M. Hogg,et al.  Group Norms and the Attitude-Behavior Relationship: A Role for Group Identification , 1996 .

[23]  Louis Leung,et al.  More Than Just Talk on the Move: Uses and Gratifications of the Cellular Phone , 2000 .

[24]  J. Colwell,et al.  Computer games, self‐esteem and gratification of needs in adolescents , 1995 .