Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel.
Br J Dev Psychol. 2009 Mar;27(Pt 1):183-96. doi: 10.1348/026151008x388413.
This paper investigates mobile phone use as a medium of inter-generational communication. Research on teenage mobile phone use has tended to focus on its peer group functionality. In this paper, the mobile phone is examined as a transitional object in parent-teen interrelationships. Specifically, drawing on ethnographic work conducted in Israel among teenagers between 2000 and 2006, the paper focuses on mobile telephones as physical objects that can connect people and mediate relationships. It is shown that, for parents and their teenage children, the mobile phone is important more for the possibility of communication and less for the text or voice conversation it actually carries. Analysis focuses also on the role of the mobile phone in enabling inter-generational distance and intimacy, attending to the complicated ways in which the mobile phone is employed by parents and their teenage children. It is argued that the analysis of mobile phone practices needs to take directly into account the specific cultural contexts of production and consumption, as culture, technology and family mutually shape one another.
本文探讨了手机作为代际沟通媒介的作用。青少年手机使用的研究往往侧重于其同辈群体功能。在本文中,手机被视为亲子关系中过渡性客体。具体来说,本文借鉴了 2000 年至 2006 年期间在以色列对青少年进行的民族志研究,重点研究了作为物理对象的移动电话,它可以连接人和调解关系。结果表明,对于父母和他们十几岁的孩子来说,手机更重要的是沟通的可能性,而不是它实际承载的文字或语音对话。分析还集中在手机在实现代际距离和亲密关系方面的作用,关注父母和十几岁的孩子使用手机的复杂方式。有人认为,对手机使用情况的分析需要直接考虑生产和消费的特定文化背景,因为文化、技术和家庭相互塑造。