Cell Phone Use 1

Cell Phone Use and Texting with Young Adults and Adults

Halea McAteer COM 381 Regis University

Cell Phone Use 2 Introduction: In todays world, new technologies are quickly arriving everyday. It seems as soon as one invention comes out, there are a million new innovations on that same technology within a few weeks. All of these new creations have clearly had an affect on society and it is important to understand how these things have shaped, and changed many of the ways people interact everyday. There has been extensive research on cell phones since they have been invented and their impact on society. Within this one bit of technology, there are thousands of other gadgets that have come out to accompany the phone. One of the most influential innovations that occurred with the cell phone was the invention of text messaging. It revolutionized the way people communicated and is the most common way people communicate with one another today. With this invention, people can have a constant, streaming conversation occurring all throughout the day without interfering with daily activities too much. Though both cell phones and texting was first used for the sole purpose of business transactions, its use has clearly grown not only in the United States but also all over the world. With this much of an influence on society, it is important to understand this technology and the way it affects people everywhere. There has been years of research comparing this technology cross-culturally and simply looking into how much it is used. However, to better understand this technology there needs to be more research done comparing age groups and genders. It is important to compare both to see the differences it has on generations. Having this in mind, this project is going to focus on two main research questions. Those being as follows:

RQ1: What are the differences of cell phone use and texting between young adults and adults?

Cell Phone Use 3 RQ2: Is there a difference between the use of this technology between males and females as well in these age groups? To do this project, it is important not only to have interviews conducted with participants in different age groups but also to look at actual text messages some of these participants send. This innovation drastically changed society and cultural norms, and it is important for society to know all of the effects it has or could have on us. Literature Review: Text messaging and cell phone use has changed from when these inventions first came out. There have been extensive studies conducted by multiple researchers from the time of the cell phones invention to today. Both Faulkner and Downes point out how texting and cell phones first came about to use for business type transactions. There was a very formal setting that this technology seemed to be reserved for. However, cell phones use has changed dramatically from then till now. As Skierkowski and Ahmed both explain, texting has now become more of a social action to keep peers in touch with one another. Ahmed also points out that texting is a way for young people and people of all ages to maintain relationships. Whereas Skierowski found that adolescents prefer being able to text people constantly because then they do not feel a sort of separation anxiety from one another. The constant contact that texting enables gives children, parents, and even friends a sense of security. For instance Aoki and Downes point out that women get a sense of security from having a phone with them when they are walking home alone at night. Having their phone with them gives them some sense of security and some of the women he interviewed even believed that it was less likely that they were going to be attacked or bothered by strangers if they had

Cell Phone Use 4 their phone with them and in use (Aoki & Downes). While these researchers have fully looked into how these cell phones are commonly used to maintain social relationships, there has yet to be a study that actually compares content of text messages between young adults and adults. Another commonality that appeared within some of this research is how cell phone use and the numbers of people owning this technology seems to be increasing. Aoki and Downes point out that in 1999 only 34% of 16-22 year olds and 28% of 10-19 year olds owned cell phones. Lenhart conducted a similar study in 2004 and found that the percentage of people who owned cell phones had increased to 93% of 18-29 year olds and 58% of 12 year olds owning cell phones, and these numbers continue to increase today (Lenhart). Further more, Bahk found that the use of cell phones is growing in the sense that younger and younger people are getting cell phones now. Faulkner argues that the increase of usage in teens for social needs, rather than just business transactions, has totally changed young culture and the ways in which young people interact with one another. Based off of these studies, this project proposes examining the many uses people have for cell phones with the increase in ownership of smart phones. Many of these researchers also looked into who uses cell phones and why they tend to use this technology more than others. Bahk and Faulkner found women are more likely to pick up new technology, such as texting, quicker. However, Faulkner continues on to explain that men are more likely to receive issued cell phones from work than woman are, but this does not significantly effect the ratio of who owns more cell phones when comparing women to men. Both Ahmed and Downes noted that people with more money are more likely to own a cell phone. Cell phones and textings only purpose a few years ago was for business transactions and people with more money. However, it is clear today that is no longer the case and many people prefer this way of communicating compared to others because it is so easy to use.

Cell Phone Use 5 Faulkner and Skierkowski point out that nowadays people are far more likely to use cell phones and texting to communicate rather than Facebook, instant messaging, email, or anything similar due to the fact that cell phones are the cheaper technology compared to computers, ipads, etc. Faulkner also points out that cell phones are a cheap flat rate so that it makes more sense to use this technology compared to others. Skierkowski explains that most people prefer texting compared to almost any other kind of communication except when they need to have a lengthy conversation. Then that person is likely to switch to a phone call to explain a topic in more detail. Furthermore, Hanson found that while people in a college setting do spend a lot of time communicating with one another face-to-face, students are more likely to text during the week and are far more likely to text than call. The common switch that occurs from calling or texting in these studies clearly stems from the length of the content the person would like to communicate. Ahmeds study also found that younger people are far more likely to text than people in their late twenties, thirties and up. This project further examines this topic by researching how much more often young adults text compared to adults. Research on cell phone and texting use found that there are a variety of reasons people prefer texting to calling or other forms of communication. These studies found another reason young people are especially motivated to text as opposed to calling or use of some other form of communication, is because they can keep it secret and private from their parents (Faulkner). Parents often monitor childrens use of home computers and other devices. However, it is more difficult for parents to monitor what their child is doing on their phone because he or she has the phone with them at all times. Skierowski mentions that young people prefer texting because they can keep multiple conversations going at once without interrupting others. Skierowski also found that people are

Cell Phone Use 6 more motivated to text if they are closer with that person. For instance, if the person the student is trying to communicate with is an acquaintance he or she is more likely to use Facebook or some other form of email. Whereas Faulkner found that woman may be more motivated to text than men due to something that may seem as insignificant as the size of the key board. Men tend to have larger hands and Faulkner found that men may find it more difficult to navigate on the smaller key boards due to this fact. While a few of the studies look into why women may be motivated to text more than men, none really seemed to look into more of the differences and motives of using cell phones between men and women. They seem to compare age groups more than gender and it will be very interesting and informative to do both. Rather than focus on what motivates people to text as opposed to use of other forms of communication, some research examines the issues or problems cell phones may be causing in our world today. For instance, Hanson found that many students in college spend far more time in class and outside of class on their phones than they do studying or doing schoolwork. This could have a large affect on how efficient of a worker that student is in all their endeavors in college as well as later on in life. Building on this, Harman found that texting seems to lower test scores. However, even though Harman did find that even though GPA was lower when the amount of text messages sent was higher, she also found that if the student or child felt more comfortable sending texts in class he or she tended to have a higher GPA compared to those who did not feel comfortable using their phones in class. Text messaging can be seen as a good, and a bad thing. For many, texting and cell phones are a way to stay connected as well as remain safe. However texting can also be seen as a distraction that can make people less productive in school, work, and less focused while on the road. Cell phones popularity is still growing and the age at which people own this technology

Cell Phone Use 7 seems to be getting younger and younger. Cell phones purpose has rapidly evolved over the past few years, and continues to do so. Its affect on all age groups continues to change. There are differences between this technologies use from now to two years ago. The change has been drastic and to keep track of this exciting technology, there must be full understanding of its use. Methods Section: To continue studying this area, this project will focus on text message and cell phone use within two specific groups. The socio-cultural tradition will be used to understand the lived experience of texting. The socio-cultural tradition is defined as the aspect of communication that will help a researcher understand the shared meaning behind something as well as rules that may have been created within this area of study. This will fit this study because there will be interviews conducted, as well as textual analysis to fully understand the differences of cell phone use across age groups and genders, these methods will be used so it will be understood the ways in which cell phone use can help generate meaning between individuals. For example, young adults and adults use cell phones in some cases to avoid having to speak on the phone or in person. Many times this technology helps define relationships and what is appropriate between two individuals. For example, in most cases text messaging will not be used between a patient and a doctor to ask questions. With this technology has come many norms, this being one of them. The interviews for this study will be conducted with male and female college students and adult users about their texting habits as well as close textual analysis of their actual text messages to compare the content between men and woman and these age groups. With the research question of what is the difference between male and female texting habits and messages content for college age and adult users? The researcher will want to use this tradition

Cell Phone Use 8 because in performing this research with this set of methods it will best answer the research question. The project will use a quota sampling method. Since the study will focus on differences in use based on gender and age. As Lindlof and Taylor explain quota sampling is defined a method of gathering representative data from a group. As opposed to other forms of sampling, quote sampling requires representative individuals that are chosen out of a specific subgroup. Quota sampling is used to examine specific populations to be able to compare differences between them, which is essential for this project. The sample population will include approximately ten college age men and women between the ages of 18 and 22 year old students as well as ten male and female individuals between the ages of 27 and 34. Since the focus is on gender and age, participants will not be discriminated on based on other demographics such as ethnicity and socio-economic class. Previous research on texting as a form of social media has mainly focused on college age users due to their extensive use of it (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, and Zuckuhr).It is important to include the older age group as well to compare the differences between college age text messages and people who are done with their schooling. For this project, participants texting history also will be analyzed to get further insight into who they text, how often they text, and what these texts consist of. To conduct interviews with this population, informed consent must be obtained to speak with the participants and get copies of their text messages. The researcher will want to interview age groups between 18 and 22 and the older group of people between ages 27 and 34, these interviews should be performed in a common area where the participants in the study will feel comfortable, such as the participants home or a coffee shop. This is a good sample to test

Cell Phone Use 9 because this generation of young adults are using this technology and still have differences in how they use them. To get accurate results, a two-tier interview process will take place. The initial interview will last twenty to thirty minutes. The researcher will perform one initial interview with each participant and schedule a follow up interview based off of the initial one. The second interviews will range from forty-five minutes in length to two hours. The interviews will be semi-structured so there is room for the participant to elaborate. For this study, it would be best not to use a completely unstructured interview because there is a chance that the interviewees may get off topic and the researcher will not receive the information he or she needs in order to complete this study. One of the questions the researcher will ask is Which do you more often, texting or calling? As well as What makes you decide to text someone as opposed to calling them? and What does your text messages content usually consist of? These questions will be asked in the first interview conducted, then based on the participants answers there will be more questions formed for the second interview. The researcher will also analyze actual text messages that participants send throughout the course of one day. For this, the researcher should look at two males and two females text messages from each age group. This project will only need two from each group because it will give the researcher enough information to compare and contrast and make conclusions. This will also make it easier for the researcher to draw conclusions between the text messages of male and females between each age group. Ideally this project would look at all text messages sent between participants in the study, since this is not probable two should be sufficient. It will be best to do this because in order to truly discover the differences in text messages males and females may have the researcher needs to conduct interviews as well as see the text messages for

Cell Phone Use 10 themselves. For the textual analysis of the text messages the researcher will read the text messages sent throughout the course of one day from the eight participants. The text messages will be analyzed multiple times in order to compare and contrast with the text messages sent with the different genders and age groups. When reading these text messages, the researcher will be looking for over lapping themes in the text messages or similar content. For example, did a male and female from the same age group both send a text message to their friend asking what he or she is doing? Or did you see that females from both age groups sent more text messages throughout the course of one day compared to the males? These are the type of things this project will hopefully discover. Conclusion: This project would look into many things that have yet to be researched. The actual content of text messages between age groups would be very interesting to compare to see how people might change little things in the way they speak in their messages based on whom they are speaking with. With the existing research that there is in this area today, this study will help to better forward and understand its affect it has on society especially within these two age groups. I think it will be good to look at the different age groups because there may be significant differences in usage between people who have most likely had a phone since they were twelve or around that age, to people who were not even exposed to this until they were in college or high school. I would guess that I would find in this study that woman have far more use of their cell phones than men do. I would also expect to find that woman are far more likely to send a lengthy text message than a man would be. It would be interesting to see if the younger age group uses their phones significantly more than the older age group. As far as analyzing the actual text

Cell Phone Use 11 messages it would be interesting to see if either males or females in these age groups use any kind of short messaging acronyms such as TTYL and so on. Or, do people prefer to spell everything out now rather than shortening it? I would expect to find if any of these people were texting someone they worked with they would most likely not use those kind of acronyms. I also hope that I will find that these people still rely on face-to-face interactions with people and that they prefer that to simply calling or texting. It would also be interesting to find that men prefer calling to texting because in most cases it may seem the other way. I would also expect to find that the young adult age group sent more text messages or spoke more with their parents. I would expect to see this simply because the majority of people in this age group are probably moving away from their parents for the first time so they feel the need to speak with them more compared to the adult group. This work could show the type of influence this technology has had on U.S. culture. It could demonstrate how much we truly rely on this sort of technology and where we would be without it. It could show that it may be a distraction at times and cause bad things to happen, but it can also be a lifesaver. It changes the way people interact with one another everyday. It has changed the way people think about have you talked to so and so today? A few years ago, that may have meant face-to-face speaking with that person. However today that could be considered one text message sent between one another. There have been many cultural norms put into place by this technology and this study would show some of those. In the interviews that would be conducted it would reveal what motivates people to send a text versus call to who and why. There are a lot of things that this study would reveal about U.S. culture. As long as this form of technology is in this world and constantly being innovated like it is today.

Cell Phone Use 12 There has been a lot of research done with cell phones and text messaging already, however due to the fact that these technologies change at a daily rate it is important to keep track of the affect or even toll that it could have on society. As long as cell phones keep changing, researchers should keep looking into the affect they have on people in society.

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References
Ahmed, Ishfaq, Muhammad Ramzan, Tehmina F. Qazi, and Shaista Jabeen. "An Investigation of Mobile Phone Consumption Patterns among Students and Professionals; Is There Any Difference?" European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences 39 (2011): n. pag. Print. Aoki, Kumiko, and Edward J. Downes. "An Analysis of Young Peoples Use of and Attitudes toward Cell Phones." Telematics and Informatics 20.4 (2003): 349-64. Print. Bahk, C., Astrid Sheil, Tapie Rohm, Jr., and Frank Lin. "Digital Media Dependency, Relational Orientation and Social Networking among College Students." Digital Media Dependency, Relational Orientation and Social Networking 10.3 (2010): n. pag. Print. Faulkner, X., and F. Culwin. "When Fingers Do the Talking: A Study of Text Messaging." Interacting with Computers 17.2 (2005): 167-85. Print. Hanson, Trudy L., Kristina Drumheller, Jessica Mallard, Connie McKee, and Paula Schlegel. "Cell Phones, Text Messaging, and Facebook: Competing Time Demands of Todays College Students." (2011): n. pag. Print. Harman, Brittany A., and Toru Sato. "Cell Phone Use and Grade Point Average Among Undergraduate University Students." (2011): n. pag. Print Lenhart, Amanda, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickuhr. "Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults." Pew Internet & American Life Project (2010): n. pag. PewResearchCenter Publications. Web. <http://http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1484/social-media-mobile-internet-use-teensmillennials-fewer-blog>.

Cell Phone Use 14 Skierowski, Dorothy, and Rebecca M. Wood. "To Text or Not to Text? The Importance of Text Messaging among College-aged Youth." Computers in Human Behavior28.2 (2012): 744-56. Print.