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On mobile communication and youth “deviance”: Beyond moral, media and mobile panics
Abstract
Cautionary voices have pointed to the apparent dangers that mobile media and communication pose for young people in the form of “deviant” activities such as sexting and mobile phone-facilitated bullying and criminal activity. Such incidents have ignited moral panics about the proliferation of mobile media because they are seen to facilitate emergent social/spatial interactions that are either unprecedented, or occurring on a scale not hitherto witnessed. While labelling concerns about youth deviance that is, in some measure, enabled or facilitated by mobile communications as “moral panics” is unproductive, it would be equally myopic to disregard the risks that mobile media can pose for youths in certain circumstances. This article critically examines the panic discourse surrounding youths and mobile media before reviewing research that suggests how mobile media can present risks for youths in particular contexts and milieus.
... Past research has pointed out that the excessive use of social media has moral and behavioural effects on young adults (Bergman et al., 2011;Brough et al., 2020;Brunborg & Andreas, 2019;Ge, 2020;Lim, 2013;Riehm et al., 2019). Due to the heavy exposure to digital platforms, individuals are inevitably influenced cognitively, emotionally and socially (Brunborg & Andreas, 2019;Immordino-Yang et al., 2012). ...
... Social media platforms encourage conformity, which entails the necessity to adopt the social community (Brough et al., 2020). Deviant behaviours on social media start to set an example since the users normalize and even glamorize popular content such as Happy Slapping videos (Lim, 2013). In other words, users begin to think that it is natural to approach someone, slap him/her, post it online and get likes for that. ...
... In other words, users begin to think that it is natural to approach someone, slap him/her, post it online and get likes for that. Longer time spent on social media demonstrated a positive relationship with increased boundary-testing behaviours (Lim, 2013). In the environment of social media, users find it challenging to interpret the moral aspects of the shared content. ...
Joyful selfies taken at disaster sites create a controversial topic in terms of moral boundaries in digital life. While some consider it acceptable to take smiley selfies in a tragedy zone, others find this behavior morally questionable. This article demonstrates empirically that excessive time spent on social media explains, at least partially, a greater tendency to like morally ambiguous content on social media. Specifically, this article shows that consumers tend to like more questionable content (such as smiley disaster selfies) on social media when they spend more time online. Further, this article shows that this effect is mediated by increased individualistic thinking. Responses to the survey experiment (N=206) compared the tendency to like morally ambiguous content between groups of little, moderate and excessive use of social media, and tested for the mediating role of individualistic thinking on the relationship between time spent and liking behavior. Secondly, the moderating role of an ethical reminder on time spent and the fact of liking morally ambiguous contents is demonstrated. In the presence of an ethical reminder, the effect of time spent on social media and liking morally ambiguous content becomes insignificant. This article contributes to theory on social media consumption by offering a novel underlying mechanism, such as increased individualistic thinking, as one variable that partly explains the liking for morally ambiguous content. This article also offers practical contributions for social media platforms and policy makers, showing that ethical reminders could be a possible and simple nudge to help consumers act more morally or become aware of morally questionable content.
... Often, these recommendations are not grounded in scientific evidence (Ophir et al., 2021;Orben, 2020) and turn out to be ineffective (Choi et al., 2018). However, Lim (2013) notes that scholarly classification of the debate over mobile technology's negative effects as a media panic disregards the range of studies that provide evidence of these harmful effects. According to Goggin (2006), in a media panic, public discourse tends to focus on the dangers and harms of the new medium, overlooking the complexities of the relationship between the medium and users, such as the development of diverse and original ways of using the medium or giving unique meanings to the new medium. ...
... This presence enables recording and dissemination and the development of offensive practices that trigger media panic. (Lim, 2013). ...
Media panics research is concerned with widespread social anxiety formed around a new technology or medium. This study adds to existing research by characterizing a new form of media panic around augmented reality applications, and specifically that which erupted concerning Pokémon GO, a popular augmented reality game. Based on a content analysis of items related to the game published in Israel's major print and online media in the period immediately following the game's launch, we classify the negative media coverage as a media panic and propose an explanation for its emergence. We argue that the negative reactions to the game stem specifically from the game's unique features and its mobile infrastructure, and especially its use of augmented reality that combines users’ virtual experiences and their interactions in actual physical space. We identify a third wave of mobile panic in this current phenomenon, one which takes into account the unique features of mobile technology as infrastructure for augmented reality applications. In contrast to previous incidents of media panic that focused on the harmful effects of increased technology use by young users, and their detachment from their physical environment, this wave represents an essentially opposite phenomenon, in which physical mobility itself, facilitated by the use of augmented reality, is deemed dangerous to players’ health and safety.
... In the same way, they can also exclude actions and identities that are inconsistent with the peer norms through social mechanisms like gossip and ridicule (Loh & Lim, 2019). These peer culture dynamics are reproduced on social media where young people create distinctive norms, practices and shared identities that re-enact their specific peer culture online (Lim, 2013;Loh & Lim, 2019). To belong to these peer cultures, young people now have to create, present and perform a visual self that is in line with the peer group's moral understanding of socialisation (Yang et al., 2017). ...
... Excessive use of social media applications in university students is known to become a cause of estrangement with parents, siblings, and other significant family members, such as grandparents (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). It can also contribute to other problems such as involvement in deviant activities (Lim, 2013); uptake of drugs and intoxicants (Gutierrez & Cooper, 2016); involvement in extremism and violence (Alava et al., 2017); and loss of selfesteem and identity crisis (Jan 2017). ...
Pakistan is known for its strong family bonds. University
students need strong support from their families for the maintenance of
ethics, health and production. However, there is fear that greater use of
social media is contributing to the weakening of family relations. This
research aims to identify the relationship between time spent on social
media and the quality of family relationships of university students. A
total of 200 students were sampled. Welch ANOVA showed that the
mean difference of family relations to social media usage was
statistically significant, Fw (3,92.91) = 8.258, p<0.01 and the Games
Howell post hoc test reveals that the quality of family relations was
significantly lower when social media usage is more than 5 hours (21.8
± 11.1). The paper discusses possible interventions to reduce social
media usage and improve family quality time, which can be helpful for
policymakers, psychologists, social workers, and social welfare officers
... Some studies have reported that moral panic was associated with perceived "deviant" activities, arising from online interactions amongst young people (e.g. Lawson & Comber, 2000;Lim, 2013). The identification of SN as a 'problem' for young people positions them as vulnerable and in need of protection and control. ...
... With the growing ubiquity of mobile communications and rapid innovation in the mobile market, our media landscape is a highly volatile one where consumers have to constantly adapt to mutable platforms and everevolving affordances. At the same time, the increasingly widespread use of smartphones and other locative media is further enriching and complicating mobile media (Lim, 2013). ...
The development of telecommunications plays an essential role in the economy, as it affects the opportunities for communication between economic actors at both the national and global levels. Today mobile communication companies, which provide quality communication and information retrieval opportunities through the variety of their services, technological features and tariff plans, are important telecommunication providers. The aim of the present research is to examine the leading mobile communication service providers in Latvia by employing the theoretical findings of communication technology and telecommunications.The research used the following methods: monographic, induction and deduction, graphic, comparison, as well as competitiveness assessment based on the competitiveness index.The research described the theoretical aspects of telecommunications, examined the leading mobile communication service providers in Latvia, their most important financial performance indicators, services and tariff plans offered as well as assessed their competitiveness.Examining the mobile tariff plans and the services included therein, it was found that they were quite similar. However, an examination of each offer in more detail revealed that there were many nuances that were important to the client and that should be paid attention to.After assessing the competitiveness of the leading mobile communication providers, it was concluded that Latvijas Mobilas Telefons scored the highest number of points, Bite Latvija was in second place and Tele 2 took third place. An assessment of the key factors of competitiveness for the providers revealed that the company Latvijas Mobilais Telefons needed to improve the positions where its competitors had higher ratings: its discount system, the prices of services and the supply of services.
... As one of the Asian miracle economies with a highly educated and wired populace, Singapore shares some historical trajectories with other states in East Asia (Leung 2007;Robertson 2002). However, citizens in Singapore experience tighter regulations that severely limit autonomous political mobilization (Lim 2013;Zhang 2013), as evidenced by the cases we list below. The People's Action Party (PAP), the longest ruling party in Singapore, has fostered a global reputation for being highly interventionist and paternalistic. ...
This paper explores episodes of provocative online articulations and the accompanying angry public reactions as part of the cultural politics of juvenile online resistance in contemporary Singapore. Rather than viewing such delinquency as ‘youth deficits’, this paper seeks a literary-culturalist standpoint in exploring the uninhibited audacity of these public online displays. We perceive such performances as reflecting the critical and socially unrestrained emotional subjectivities of ‘youth mirroring deficits’ of the ‘Emperor’s new clothes’. The authors propose to appropriate the colloquial Singaporean Chinese Hokkien term of Si Geena (brat), a label commonly used to describe these offending personalities, to frame the dynamics of youth resistance, and new media in Singapore. Si Geena are often un-social digital juvenile provocateurs baiting moral outrage and public indignation. In turn, societal responses to the Si Geena ’s episodic resistance reveal the contradictions, insecurities, and volatility of Singapore’s reactive public.
Screen time is a controversial subject in media and technology studies. Situated within the media harm debate, binary arguments have developed in discourse about the effect screen time has on people and society. The widespread use of screen-based media is the culmination of user-friendly smartphones and tablets as well as the ubiquitous nature of screen-laden media. How parents define, implement, and manage screen time is imperative to understanding how children engage with screen-based media and the observed effect it has. To understand this discourse, I conducted a social network content analysis of conversations surrounding screen time on the user-generated platform Reddit. The analysis focused on contributors' uses of the term "screen time" and the conversations relating to the implications of screen time for children. Preliminary data suggests that groups form around clusters of information that deem screen time as having a positive, negative or neutral effect - a position that also determines a parent's decision to provide unlimited or restricted access of screens to their children. The conceptual framework for this research draws from Pinch and Bijker's (1990) social construction of technology to understand how social groups form and how these groups share meanings they attach to the artifact (in this case, screens). The group formations around screen time mimic the media harm debate, with children viewed as competent (able to use technology to create, participate and build digital literacies) or vulnerable (subjected to harmful content, physical risks, and potential delays in cognitive development). The problem with the tendency to view children's screen time as positive or negative, rather than both, is it limits management strategies on how to minimize risk and maximize benefit.
The prevalence of social media in young people’s lives is widely accepted in today’s society. Although social media use is ubiquitous in young people’s lives, schools continue to overlook how young people engage with social media. Drawing on ideas from Deleuze and Guattari (2013) this thesis uses an ethnographic approach to explore the ways in which nine young people engage with social media platforms to generate a sense of identity. Using ethnographic interviews, school and online observations, this thesis examines the relationship between school cultures and online social media environments inhabited by the young people. Working as an academic tutor at a mainstream secondary school in the UK, the researcher had access to the research participants’ day-to-day school activities, as well as extended access to their online lives by conducting online observations on various social media platforms they used. Each participant was analysed using a Deleuzo-Guattarian conceptual frame which draws from the notions of assemblages, becomings, territorialisations and de-territorialisations. The research findings identify some of the participants’ dissatisfaction with narrow and constricting school curricular cultures, whilst also highlighting how the blurred expectations that social media offers facilitates the building of their ambitions and aspirations. Therefore, the thrust of the thesis is to trace some of the relationalities between school cultures and the social media used by the young people. The findings could inform current government initiatives exploring social media’s impact on young people’s health and lives. With legislation due to be passed between 2020 and 2021, this thesis could deepen the understanding of how young people’s online activity is intricately linked with other aspects of their everyday lives, such as school. The thesis demonstrates how participants’ engagements online are nuanced and opening up possibilities for empowerment, identity work and the pursuit of a curated becoming underpinned by the particularities of social media platforms.
While pedagogy is predominantly viewed from the perspective of classroom instruction, educators worldwide invariably play a critical pastoral role of shaping the personal development of their students and nurturing in them life skills. With the avid use of participatory media by young people in peer interaction, educators need to be aware of the attendant risks and opportunities so that they may offer counsel and render appropriate advice. To this end, through interviews with 36 Singaporean male juvenile delinquents and youths-at-risk, this study explores how these youths utilise participatory media in their peer interaction. The findings indicate that for this vulnerable youth population, participatory media such as social networking sites can become a platform through which they are unwittingly drawn into criminal behaviour and post-rehabilitation, participatory media may offer an insidious route to recidivism. Participatory media complicates peer interaction by presenting risk factors such as network transparency, negative peer modelling, network seepage and network persistence, all of which have implications for these youths sliding further into delinquency and criminal activity. This article concludes with recommendations on the strategies which youths-at-risk can employ to avoid the risks of participatory media.
Research on the social and psychological effects of mobile phone communication primarily is conducted using self-report measures of use. However, recent studies have suggested such measures of mobile phone communication use contain a significant amount of measurement error. This study compares the frequency of mobile phone use measured by self-report questions with error-free log data automatically collected through an Android smartphone application. Using data from 310 Android phone users in Japan, we investigate the extent to which nonrandom measurement error exists in self-report responses to questions about mobile phone use and predictors of this error. Our analysis shows that users generally overreport their frequency of mobile communication and that overestimation is better predicted by proxy measures of social activity than demographic variables. We further show an example of how overreporting can result in an overestimation of the effects of mediated communication on civic engagement. Finally, the value of behavioral log data in mediated communication research is discussed.
SMS and mobile voice telephony have become a common part of the teen experience in Nor- way. Almost 19 out of 20 teens own a mobile telephone. In addition, Norwegian teens are frequent users of mobile voice telephony and, in particular SMS. Access to mobile communi- cation plays into the way teens experience emancipation from their parents, their integration into the peer group and the resulting boundary testing issues. In addition, the device plays into more illicit behaviors for a small portion of teens. This paper uses the survey data gath- ered from a random selection of 11 928 teens in Norwegian Statistical Research's study Ung i Norge (Young in Norway). The data was collected in February of 2002. The data material provides one with broad insight into many facets of teen's lives. The analysis here indicates that SMS and mobile voice telephony play into the adolescent experience in complex ways. The analysis indicates that these forms of mobile communication facilitate emancipation as- sist in peer group bonding, and, in a small number of cases, play into more illicit activities. There is, however a special role in terms of boundary testing behaviors that is, in many ways, an integral part of emancipation.
Although acknowledging the importance of adolescent friendships in the etiology of delinquency, prior studies have yet to provide a detailed examination of the role of actual friendship networks in delinquency. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (1995–1996), this study's incorporation of friendship networks allows for a more rigorous conceptualization and measurement of peer delinquency based on carefully defined networks of adolescent friendships. Findings illustrate that friendship networks are very heterogenous in terms of members' participation in delinquent behavior with the majority of adolescents belonging to networks containing both delinquent and non-delinquent friends. In support of differential association's premise that delinquent behavior is influenced by the ratio of definitions favorable to those unfavorable to law violation (Sutherland, 1947), the proportion of delinquent friends in a respondent's network is most strongly associated with respondents' subsequent delinquency. This relative measure of peer delinquency is preferable to a measure of the absolute level of delinquency occurring by friends, the average delinquency committed by friends, or the absolute number of delinquent friends. Enmeshment in a friendship network where consensus about the appropriateness of delinquency is maximized (i.e., all friends are delinquent or non-delinquent) most effectively constrains the behaviors of network members to resemble the groups' behavior.
Providing the first comprehensive, accessible, and international introduction to cell phone culture and theory, this book is and clear and sophisticated overview of mobile telecommunications, putting the technology in historical and technical context.
“Sexting” is the term commonly used to refer to the transfer of nude or semi-nude pictures or videos between mobile devices. This paper contextualizes the reaction to the practice of sexting among adolescents by exploring legal responses and reviewing the literature on teens and cell phone use. The purpose of the paper is to identify, explore and analyze the key themes emerging from the coverage of teen sexting by television news in the United States. The author explores three primary themes that emerge from the broadcast discourse: preference for technologically deterministic explanations; reliance on gender-differentiated scenarios; and, a preference for solutions involving surveillance. This paper further explores whether the discourse around sexting can be understood using media panic theory. Noting the problematic conflation of risk and harm in the discourse, the author concludes by suggesting avenues for future research regarding the creation and transmission of sexual images using digital devices.
Drawing on relevant theory and research, it is argued that the impact of delinquent peers on delinquency is conditioned by (1) attachment to peers, (2) time spent with peers, and (3) the extent to which peers present delinquent patterns (i.e., present definitions favorable to delinquency, model delinquent behavior, and differentially rein force delinquency). Regression analyses with data from the National Youth Survey provide partial support for these arguments. When the above variables are at their mean or lower levels, a measure of association with peers who engage in serious delinquency has no impact or a negative impact on delinquency. When the above variables are at higher levels, delinquent peers (serious) has a strong, positive impact on delinquency. A measure of association with peers who engage in minor delinquency, however, is not conditioned by the above variables.
use, in particular, often stress the liberatory effects of mobile media, and how it enables young people to escape the demands of existing social structures and parental surveillance. This paper argues that the mobile phone can indeed enable communication that crosses prior social boundaries, but this does not necessarily mean that the devices erode the integrity of existing places or social identities. While Japanese youth actively use mobile phones to overcome limitations inherent in their weak social status, their usage is highly deferential to institutions of home and school and the integrity of existing places. Taking up the case of how Japanese teen's mobile phone use is structured by the power-geometries of place, this paper argues that characteristics of mobile phones and mobile communication are not inherent in the device, but are determined by social and cultural context and power relations. After first presenting the methodological and conceptual framework for this paper, we present our ethnographic material in relation to the power-dynamics and regulation of different kinds of places: the private space of the home, the classroom, the public spaces of the street and public transportation, and the virtual space of peer connectivity enabled by mobile communications. Method and Conceptual Framework Our Research This paper draws from ongoing ethnographic research on mobile phone use and location, centered at Keio Shonan Fujisawa Campus near Tokyo. We draw primarily from two different sets of data. One is a set of ethnographic interviews conducted by Ito in the winter of 2000, with twenty-four high school and college students about their use of media, including mobile phones. The central body of data behind this paper is a set of twenty-four "communication diaries" and interviews collected between July-February 2003 by Okabe and Ito. For this study, our intent was to capture the usage patterns of particular individuals. We adapted data collection methods piloted by Rebecca Grinter and Margery Eldridge (2001) where they asked ten teenagers to record the time, content, length, location, and recipient (or sender) of all text messages for seven days. As with interviews, this data collection method still relies on second-hand accounting, but has the advantage of providing much more detail on usage than can be recalled in a stand-alone interview. We expanded the communication log to include voice calls and mobile Internet, and more details about the location and context of use. Participants were asked to keep records of every instance of mobile phone use, including voice, short text messages, email, and web use, for a period of two days. They noted the time of the usage, who they were in contact with, whether they