Fascinating article. The field trip/study occurred in 2003 - since then the paper admits mobile phones have become more pervasive and common. However, the behavior of the teenage girls it examines during study points out that a mobile phone may be a totem of your social identity (especially, when you're just fiddling with it in public making use of idle time). Italic emphasis added below.
"The girls...did not possess the phone through personalization...Instead, they related to the mobile in a very functional way...seeking devices...not seen as technologically advanced or too sophisticated...Rather than display their mobile phones, then, the girls were preoccupied with hiding this object, which they were not supposed to own - and with denying the relationshipsitsignified"
"For these teenage girls, the mobile phone connoted not mobility and movement in space, but rather intimacy and person-to-person communcation.."
danah boyd says, "In short, they document how culturally specific gendered practices (not technological features) frame the meaning and value of technology."
This rings so true for me... it's like the Clay Shirky quote: "the social characteristics of the web only become interesting once the technology is boring." (paraphrased).
That's why the usage and behavior on a site like craigslist is more interesting than any web service in the last year.
It's certainly fascinating to see how technology and traditions influence each other. Here in the Netherlands I've seen muslim girls receive text messages during the ramadan, signalling them when they're allowed to eat.
That's something I hate about the internet. The constantly repeating memes is like standing in an echo chamber and feeling my brain melt because of the incessant repetition. Also why I detest pop music.
"The girls...did not possess the phone through personalization...Instead, they related to the mobile in a very functional way...seeking devices...not seen as technologically advanced or too sophisticated...Rather than display their mobile phones, then, the girls were preoccupied with hiding this object, which they were not supposed to own - and with denying the relationships it signified"
"For these teenage girls, the mobile phone connoted not mobility and movement in space, but rather intimacy and person-to-person communcation.."