Hello all
I attended the seminar on Mobile Phone Safety for Children in London. Among other people there were Sonia Livingstone of LSE and Vicki Nash from OII. I presented some issues associated with mobile phone use and children/teens. The first point I tried to make is that the mobile phone is a very important device for teens. I have made a similar point in the piece I wrote for Gerard Goggin and Larisa Hjorth's book namely that the mobile phone ties the teen to their peers and in this way it supports the emancipation process. The second point was that teens and children are two different groups. Teens are on their way out the door as it were while children are still quite securely in the sphere of the home. Next I tried to talk about the safety and deviance issues associated with teen mobile phone use. There are things like sending around nude photos and drunken photos, viral invitations to parties, etc. In addition, we have done some work on the interaction (not causality) of mobiles with serious criminality and sexual experience. There is a correlation between very heavy mobile use and more serious criminality. This is only for the absolute heaviest mobile users. In the case of sexual activity there is more of a linear relationship that goes across the board. Another area of concern is mobile addiction. Finally, there is the issue of mobiles and children. Since their social world is so much more limited there is a more limited problem. The issue of radiation is brought up by many but there does not seem to be a conclusion on the one or the other side of that issue. There are questions of teaching writing and the role of texting but here there is very little evidence that there is an effect. Indeed, there is some sense that children and teens are very good at code switching depending on the context of the writing. I was an interesting day and there were some interesting discussions and observations. Rich L. The link to the ning site is: http://mobilesociety.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mobile-phone-safety-for --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mobile-society" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mobile-society?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
