Encyclopedia of Mobile Phone Behavior

Encyclopedia of Mobile Phone Behavior Zheng Yan University at Albany, State University of New York, USA

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Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA, USA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2015 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of mobile phone behavior / Zheng Yan, editor. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4666-8239-9 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-8240-5 (ebook) 1. Cell phones--Social aspects. 2. Mobile communication systems--Social aspects. 3. Interpersonal communication--Technological innovations--Social aspects. I. Yan, Zheng, 1958HE9713.E63 2015 303.48’33--dc23 2015003299 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher. For electronic access to this publication, please contact: [email protected].

Category: Users and Special Populations

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Children, Risks, and the Mobile Internet Giovanna Mascheroni Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy Leslie Haddon London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

INTRODUCTION With the adoption of more and more smartphones, the scope of mobile communication is clearly broadened, as young people engage in new practices and address new audiences (Bertel & Stald, 2013; Ling & Bertel, 2013). New opportunities for sociality, self-expression, learning and managing everyday life become accessible on the move. At the same time, new concerns arise regarding the potential risks of the mobile internet for children – namely, the question of whether the intensification in space and time of online practices, in particular through social media, that is afforded by smartphones may influence exposure to a range of existing online risks, while also posing specific new challenges to children’s online safety, such as emerging risks associated with location-tracking services. The increasing preoccupation with the risks of mobile communication and mobile devices is an example of issues and concerns migrating from one research field to another – namely, from internet studies in general, and from studies of children’s internet safety more specifically, to the field of mobile phone studies. Drawing on a review of the research on mobile communication and children, this article examines how a new research agenda has emerged within the field.

OVERVIEW: RESEARCH ON YOUTH AND MOBILE COMMUNICATION Early research on mobile communication focused on young people as pioneers in the domestication of mobile phones and the creation of mobile cultures (Caron & Caronia, 2007; Ling, 2004; Goggin, 2006, 2013; Green & Haddon, 2009). Not only did teenagers and children adopt mobile phones extensively; they also experimented with new communicative practices, such as texting and beeping, and created specific sub-cultures expressed in and through mobile media. One key framework in research on children and mobile communication is the ‘emancipation’ approach (Ling, 2004). This located mobile phones within the process of social emancipation by which teenagers and children develop autonomy from their family through socialisation with peers. This field has been articulated in two lines of research, the first examining the meanings and use of mobile phones within the parent-child relationship and the second investigating how mobile communication fitted into relationships with peers. As regards the first, the mobile phone has become an important, though ambivalent, material and symbolic resource in the child-parent relationship (Green, 2002; Green & Haddon, 2009; Ling, 2004). Indeed, parents and children seem to

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8239-9.ch111 Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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Children, Risks, and the Mobile Internet

attribute different meanings to mobile communication. For parents, the mobile phone serves as an ‘electronic’ or ‘digital leash’ (Caron & Caronia, 2007; Ling, 2004; Ling & Haddon, 2008) reflected in their efforts to regulate children’s mobile phone use and extend parental monitoring outside the domestic context. Parents enact what they perceive as being good parenting by imposing rules and, at the same time, fostering children’s autonomy and responsibility. In contrast, children can see the mobile phone essentially as a means of escaping the parental nest. As a consequence, they engage in a variety of tactics to negotiate and manage parental surveillance, for example by turning off the phone and then claiming they were in a signal dead zone. While studies of youth and mobile phones have highlighted how mobile telephony represents an important step in the transition from childhood through adolescence towards greater independence (Green, 2002; Ling & Yttri, 2002), scholars have also argued that this safety link may actually reduce children’s autonomy, since they can more easily get in touch with their parents whenever they meet any difficult situation (e.g. when they get into trouble with schoolmates) (Green & Haddon, 2009; Ling, 2012). As noted, emancipation can be facilitated through social access to peers. And so some early research showed how mobile communication yielded new forms of interaction and coordination among teenagers, called micro- and hypercoordination (Ling & Yttri, 2002). While the first refers to the practice of continuously rearranging the place and time of face to face meetings ‘on the fly’, hyper-coordination includes all the more expressive and symbolic uses of mobile phones among children, which have been identified as traits of youth mobile cultures worldwide. By developing a sense of ‘connected presence’ (Licoppe, 2004) with their intimate ties, teenagers reinforce group belonging while at the same time expressing their identities through identification with, as well as distinction within, the peer network. This emphasis on social cohesion did not mean that mobile communication research downplayed

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potential negative consequences. On the contrary, one major side effect of this ‘anywhere, anytime’ accessibility to peers has been highlighted: the same sociability that promotes inclusion in some peer groups may also be conducive to social exclusion from others through the formation of ‘walled communities’ (Ling, 2004). Meanwhile, a second concern which characterised mobile communication studies from the beginning was the fear that the perpetual contact with parents may actually hinder children’s development and cause them anxiety (Bond, 2010). Other risks, such as cyberbullying and sexting, have only been the focus of research within the field of mobile studies more recently (among recent contributions see, for example, Bond, 2011; Campbell & Park, 2014; Vanden Abeele & De Cock, 2013; Vanden Abeele et al., 2013). One exception was the study of sexting conducted by the Pew (Lenhart, 2009), in which the exchange of sexually explicit messages and pictures focused on mobile communication and not on online communication. Nonetheless, these issues have been on the public agenda for some time. Happy slapping - which consists of recording offline bullying episodes with a camera phone or a smartphone, and later uploading the videos on YouTube or other video sharing platforms online – was ‘discovered’ by the British press in 2005 and contributed to increasing public concern. From the UK, the media coverage of happy slapping spread across Europe, receiving great public attention especially in Southern European countries (Mascheroni et al., 2010). Sexting, too, was popularised in media discourses in the same years, and received greater visibility thanks to the first legal cases against teenagers charged with child pornography in Australia and the US. In media representations, sexting and bullying often go hand in hand. Prof. Richard Ling (Ling, 2004) at the ITU and the Telenor Research Institute, Dr. Leslie Haddon at the London School of Economics and Political Science (Ling & Haddon, 2008), Dr. Nicola Green at the University of Surrey (Green


& Haddon, 2009), and Leopoldina Fortunati at the University of Udine (Fortunati & Manganelli, 2002) are among the earliest examining mobile communication and youth. Beyond the researchers just mentioned, current leading scholars include also Prof. Gerard Goggin at the University of Sidney (Goggin, 2006), Larissa Hjorth at the RMIT University (Goggin & Hjorth, 2009), Scott Campbell at the University of Colorado (Ling & Campbell, 2001), Gitte Stald at ITU (Stald & Bertel, 2013), and Dr. Jane Vincent at the London School of Economics and Political Science (Vincent & Fortunati, 2009). Prof. Sonia Livingstone at the London School of Economics and Political Science is the leading expert in research on children and the internet (Livingstone, 2009).

CURRENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ON RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE (MOBILE) INTERNET The Risk Agenda Anxieties over children’s mobile phone use are not new: concerns about yet more screen-time and potential withdrawal from co-present interaction due to absorption in mediated communication have long figured at the top of parental worries as well as within social discourses around mobile telephony (Haddon, 2013). However, the availability of new functionalities on mobile phones, such as the camera and more recently the increasing convergence of mobile and online communication afforded by smartphones, have raised new issues. The resulting research framework for mobile phone studies was born at the intersection of academic, public and policy concerns and was largely informed by the agenda on children’s online safety. Political actors at the European and the national level have been central in shaping the climate for research in the area of children and the internet over the past decade (Stald & Haddon, 2009). At the European level, the European Commission

played an invaluable role as a primary source of funding opportunities to study children and the internet. Since their inception in 1999, the EC’s successive Safer Internet Programmes have sought to enhance the knowledge base as regards children’s online experiences so as to guide the promotion of a safer online environment in Europe, initiating a series of ‘Actions’, such as promoting risk awareness among parents, teachers, young people and other stakeholders, and empowering children through the provision of positive contents and the enhancement of their digital literacy. Specific initiatives supported by the Safer Internet Programme include creating a network of awareness centers throughout Europe and directly commissioning its own cross-national research (European Commission 2007, 2008). The Programme also provided financial support for a research network - the EU Kids Online network - which has been active since 2006 and which conducted a survey of over 25,000 children aged 9-16 and their parents in 25 European countries (Livingstone et al., 2011). The body of research on children’s online safety, therefore, provides an example of a fruitful cooperation between academics and policy makers, with the former urging the latter to promote evidence based policy, and the latter encouraging and promoting comparative research that otherwise would not have taken place. Besides directly supporting cross-national research, the European influence has also been of the utmost significance on the national level, in terms of providing the stimulus for greater research on the impact of the internet on children’s everyday life (Stald & Haddon, 2009). Moreover, drawing on the empirical findings collected during these years, the EC took the lead in policy initiatives aimed at involving internet service and content providers in the effort to build a better internet for children, through child protection and positive content provision. For example, under the same framework of self-regulation, in 2006 the EC Safer Internet Plus Programme raised the issue of mobile internet access among children (at the time, via WAP- Wireless Applica-

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tion Protocol, a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network, used for enabling internet access from mobile phones since 1999). In order to understand the implications of the changing conditions of internet access and use, the EC entered into discussions with mobile operators, who, lead by Vodafone, commissioned a literature review (Haddon 2007) of children’s general use of mobile phones but with a particular interest in their internet access through this device. The empirical evidence available in the mid-2000s led them to conclude that this was not yet an issue for the internet safety agenda, since the high tariffs still discouraged children from accessing the internet from their mobile phones. Consequently, there was no pressure on mobile operators to conduct forms of self-regulation at that stage.

Early Research on Risks of Mobile Internet Access and Use Empirical evidence that mobile access to the internet is accompanied by increased exposure to online risks or to new emerging risks remained limited until very recently. The 25 country EU Kids Online II survey showed that in 2010 around a third of 9-16 year old internet users said that they used a mobile phone or a handheld device to go online (Livingstone et al. 2011). The findings showed that there was little difference in the likelihood of experiencing risks on the internet, between those children who used a mobile phone to go online and those who did not have mobile access. It is the multiplication of various platforms to access the internet that results in more time spent online; the more intense use of the internet, in turn, was related to increased exposure to risk (Stald & Ólaffson, 2012). However, though smartphones were not very popular among children at the time of the EU Kids Online survey, this study showed that the introduction of smartphones into everyday life was not without consequences in terms of online experiences: it showed that using

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a smartphone led to slightly increased exposure to risk compared to going online from a mobile phone (Stald & Ólafsson, 2012). By this stage, however, the new research agenda had already found a stable configuration. It is, as anticipated, the outcome of different forces combined: the media, policy and research agendas on children’s internet safety all contributed to shape the discursive environment in which the domestication of the smartphone and the mobile internet is taking place. Policy-makers’ priorities are informed by academics and influenced by media discourses. Academics, too, set their research questions in response to policy-making goals and social and media representations. And, finally, the media interpret, amplify and represent social discourses and concerns. These converging forces lead to the definition of a new set of research questions in the field of mobile studies, related to the internet ‘going mobile’.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS On these premises, in spring 2012 the European Commission launched a new call under the framework of the Safer Internet Programme, to fund a research project aimed at “investigating the impact on young people of convergence of technology,” more specifically, in order “to investigate through a quantitative and qualitative methodology how the changing conditions of access and use (mobile devices) bring greater or lesser risks to children’s safety.” This is how the Net Children Go Mobile project (www.netchildrengomobile.eu, SI-2012KEP-411201) originated. The project is a twoyear long, multi-method study grounded in the internet risk agenda. To achieve these goals, 3,500 children aged 9-16 who are internet users have been surveyed in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and the UK. Moreover, 6 focus groups and 12 individual interviews with children aged 9-16 and 9 focus groups with adults


(parents, teachers and others working with young people) have been conducted in each country, plus Germany and Spain. The first step in this project is to understand which children are using mobile devices to go online, in what context they do so (e.g. in the home, constrained by certain parental rules) and what they are doing online. The second stage was to explore whether new mobile communication practices and contents actually generate new risky interactions and experiences, to what extent, for which children they turn into harmful consequences and how children deal with these potentially harmful experiences. This is by no means straightforward. As studies of children and the internet have shown (Livingstone, 2009; Livingstone et al., 2011) online risks may or may not be conducive to harmful experiences. Moreover, the very meaning of risk cannot be taken for granted, as children may not perceive themselves as at risk when adults would define a situation as dangerous. Hence we needed to investigate both children’s and parents’ very perception of risk. And while smartphone use may be associated with a growing exposure to risks, this cannot be assumed to be a causal relationship: smartphone users may well be exposed to more risky experiences as they are generally older and they also tend to benefit from more online opportunities (Mascheroni & Ólafsson, 2014). Despite being aligned with the ‘risk and opportunities’ framework on children’s online experiences, the project also incorporated research themes, perspectives and ‘sensitising concepts’ from the traditions of internet and mobile communication studies, to which many of the research team belong to. Therefore, based on the Net Children Go Mobile framework and its first findings, we can outline some issues at the convergence of mobile phone and internet studies that are worth addressing in the future. One major theme concerns the domestication of new mobile devices: while mobile communication has turned into a taken for granted condition of our social ecology (Ling, 2012), smartphones are

currently at an earlier stage of being domesticated. Consequently, meanings and legitimate uses are still the object of negotiation and resistance: social pressures and constraints and technological affordances, but also cost considerations and regulation (e.g. whether children are discouraged from some online activities by parents, whether time spent on line is limited, to what extent teachers allow their use in schools) all combine to influence patterns of use and the incorporation of smartphones into children’s everyday lives. In this respect the adoption of new technologies by dependent young people is a more complex process than adoption by adults (Haddon & Ólafsson, 2014). Investigating commonalities and differences between PC-centred and mobile-centred internet use also calls into question many claims about children’s relation to ICTs in general, as captured in the debate over the empirical validity of the label of ‘digital natives’ (Helsper & Enyon, 2010). Prior research indicates that we need to differentiate between children, just as we differentiate between adults, when considering their varying use of technologies, and this includes the extent to which there are national differences in children’s, usage, skills and motivations. While such an understanding clearly has a bearing on assessing risk, it also means addressing a further policy interest originating from internet studies in any new forms of digital divide. This could be between children accessing the internet from mobile media and those who do not, as well as between children using smartphones or other handheld devices to do so and children using an ordinary mobile phone to go online. There is also the related issue of whether mobile internet may provide a viable strategy to overcome any social exclusion arising through some children not having a PC to access the internet or, the opposite, whether mobile-only internet users have a more restricted online experience than multiplatform internet users. In this second case, mobile internet use would produce new divides, rather than closing the existing ones (namely the first level digital divide).

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The domestication of an ICT is never a once and for all process: initial uses may differ from uses that become socially accepted once a new technology is more embedded in society. Therefore, it is vital to appreciate how uses develop in the longer term and to track changes but also levels at which there are continuities in practices. For example, perpetual access to peers used to be mainly provided via instant messaging services or SMS a few years ago. It was then achieved by means of social networking sites, for example Facebook. But empirical evidence from the Net Children Go Mobile project suggests that a sense of ‘connected presence’ with one’s community of interaction is now maintained also through intermittent but continuous communication on WhatsApp. Moreover, one objective of the project is to be able to understand whether online practices alter when performed on smartphones. For example, does greater scope for frequent mobile social networking allow or involve different communication practices and social norms compared to the more intermittent social networking from a fixed PC? Or does it simply result in an intensification of use, and a greater embeddedness of social networking in the micro-coordination of face to face encounters (Ling, 2012)? While the domestication framework has tended to focus on the social shaping of use, in the case of children often experienced as constraints on use, the risk and opportunities agenda also requires us to ask about what might change, what social consequences follow from mobile internet use – as exemplified by the issue of new digital divides. In relation to the risk agenda one research question is whether, and what happens if, the meaning of mobile phones within the parent-child relationship evolves: from a safety link, which gives children greater autonomy and freedom and provides parents with a tool for interpersonal monitoring, to smartphones opening up more ‘risky opportunities’, by facilitating greater exposure to a variety of online risks. Smaller screen, together with the personal nature of mobile devices, may hinder some existing forms of parental mediation or re-

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frame them as not appropriate (physically observing use or checking children’s devices), requiring parents to think of new ways in which they might engage with their children’s online experiences. Despite the claims of potential mobile internet access ‘anytime, anywhere’ the Net Children Go Mobile project has already pointed to the social limitations on children’ s ability to go online from mobile devices. However, apart from the question whether relatively greater access to the internet via a smartphone, tablet or other portable device might intensify exposure to risky online experiences, there are also public and policy concerns about any potential new risks associated with geo-positioning and near-field communication technologies. These are able to locate one’s position in space, connect the user with content, services and other users located nearby and access contextual information (Gordon & De Souza, 2011; Wilken & Goggin, 2012). One the one hand, those geo-location services offer more scope for the abuse of personal data, geo-location tracking and threats to privacy (be it for commercial goals or for grooming). But the particular empirical question here is whether children in practice make use of such functionality or are exposed to such possibilities. The longer term research task is to identify and then investigate other potential new risks as the mobile internet continues to develop and as new apps appear. Among online risks, one item which may well need a partial reconfiguration when studying the consequences of smartphones on children’s online experiences is ‘excessive use’. The dominant framework within internet studies interprets excessive use in terms of internet ‘addiction’ (but see Kardefeldt-Winther (2014) on the emergence of alternative frames such as the compensatory model). However, when it comes to smartphones the emotional attachment to any kind of mobile phone as extension of teens and children’s bodies (Vincent & Fortunati, 2009) as well as the social norms requiring young people to provide ‘always on’ accessibility to intimate others (Ling, 2012) cannot be underplayed. In other words, what adults


may see as ‘excessive use’ may seem reasonable from the child’s perspective. This brings us back to the key point that understanding the meanings that children attribute to various online risks, how they contextualise those risks in their daily experiences and how they develop preventive and coping strategies is important if we are to assume a childcentred approach (Livingstone, 2009) and avoid simply imposing adult perspectives on children’s behaviour and what counts as online risks. These are some of the broad issues that future studies on children and mobile communication may well address, and that emerge at the intersection of the risk agenda within internet studies and the field of mobile phone research. As noted, this is an example of a set of frameworks and concerns migrating from one field to another: the risks of mobile internet use for children, as we have seen, were raised on the policy agenda even before empirical evidence had been collected. However, while the ‘risks and opportunities’ agenda poses new research questions for mobile communication research, at the same time mobile phone studies may introduce new elements to studies of children and the internet. For example, the ‘emancipation approach’ or the focus on emotional attachment to very personal devices such as the mobile phone, as described earlier, can add new dimensions for understanding children’s online experiences.

REFERENCES Bertel, T., & Stald, G. (2013). From SMS to SNS: the use of the internet on the mobile phone among young Danes. In K. Cumiskey & L. Hjorth (Eds.), Mobile media practices, presence and politics: The challenge of being seamlessly mobile (pp. 198–213). New York: Routledge. Bond, E. (2010). Managing mobile relationships: Children’s perceptions of the impact of the mobile phone on relationships in their everyday lives. Childhood, 17(4), 514–529. doi:10.1177/0907568210364421

Bond, E. (2011). The mobile phone= bike shed? Children, sex and mobile phones. New Media & Society, 13(4), 587–604. doi:10.1177/1461444810377919 Campbell, S. W., & Park, Y. J. (2014). Predictors of mobile sexting among teens: Toward a new explanatory framework. Mobile Media & Communication, 2(1), 20–39. doi:10.1177/2050157913502645 Caron, A., & Caronia, L. (2007). Moving cultures. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press. European Commission. (2007). Safer internet for children: Qualitative study in 29 European countries. Retrieved on April 27, 2014 from: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ quali/ql_safer_internet_summary.pdf European Commission. (2008). Towards a safer use of the Internet for children in the EU: A parents’ perspective. Retrieved on April 27, 2014 from: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/ fl_248_en.pdf Fortunati, L., & Manganelli, A. (2002). Young people and the mobile telephone. Estudios de Juventud, 57(2), 59–78. Goggin, G. (2006). Cell phone culture: Mobile technology in everyday life. London: Routledge. Goggin, G. (2013). Youth culture and mobiles. Mobile Media & Communication, 1(1), 83–88. doi:10.1177/2050157912464489 Goggin, G., & Hjorth, L. (Eds.). (2009). Mobile technologies: From telecommunications to media. London: Routledge. Gordon, E., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2011). Net locality: Why location matters in a networked world. Boston: Blackwell-Wiley. Green, N. (2002). Who’s watching whom? Monitoring and accountability in mobile relations. In B. Brown, N. Green, & R. Harper (Eds.), Wireless world (pp. 32–45). London: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4471-0665-4_3

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Green, N., & Haddon, L. (2009). Mobile communications: an introduction to new media. Oxford, UK: Berg. Haddon, L. (2007). Concerns about children and mobile phone communications: A review of academic research. Vodafone. Haddon, L. (2013). Mobile media and children. Mobile Media & Communication, 1(1), 89–95. doi:10.1177/2050157912459504 Haddon, L., & Ólafsson, K. (2014). Children and the mobile internet. In G. Goggin & L. Hjorth (Eds.), The Routledge companion to mobile media. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Haddon, L., & Stald, G. (2009). A comparative analysis of European press coverage of children and the internet. Journal of Children and Media, 3(4), 379–393. doi:10.1080/17482790903233432 Helsper, E., & Eynon, R. (2010). Digital natives: Where is the evidence? British Educational Research Journal, 36(3), 513–520. doi:10.1080/01411920902989227 Kardefelt-Winther, D. (2014). A conceptual and methodological critique of internet addiction research: Towards a model of compensatory internet use. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 351–354. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.059 Lenhart, A. (2009). Teens and sexting: How and why minor teens are sending sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images via text messaging. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Retrieved December 15, 2013 from: http://pewresearch.org/ assets/pdf/teens-and-sexting.pdf Ling, R. (2004). The mobile connection: The cell phone’s impact on society. Morgan Kaufmann. Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness: The embedding of mobile communication into society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Ling, R., & Bertel, T. (2013). Mobile communication culture among children and adolescents. In D. Lemish (Ed.), The Routledge international handbook of children, adolescents and media (pp. 127–133). London: Routledge. Ling, R., & Campbell, S. W. (Eds.). (2011). Mobile communication: Bringing us together and tearing us apart. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Ling, R., & Haddon, L. (2008). Children, youth and the mobile phone. In K. Drotner & S. Livingstone (Eds.), The international handbook of children, media and culture (pp. 137–151). London: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781848608436.n9 Ling, R., & Yttri, B. (2002). Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. In J. Katz & M. Aakhus (Eds.), Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance (pp. 139–169). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Livingstone, S. (2009). Children and the internet. Cambridge, MA: Polity. Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A., & Ólafsson, K. (2011). Risks and safety on the internet: The perspective of European children. London: LSE. Retrieved on April 27, 2014 from: http:// eprints.lse.ac.uk/33731/ Mascheroni, G., & Ólafsson, K. (2014). Net children go mobile: Risks and opportunities (2nd ed.). Milano: Educatt. Retrieved on September 29, 2014 from: www.netchildrengombile.eu/reports/ Mascheroni, G., Ponte, C., Garmendia, M., Garitaonandia, C., & Murru, M. F. (2010). Comparing media coverage of online risks for children in South Western European Countries: Italy, Portugal and Spain. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 6(1), 25–44. doi:10.1386/ macp.6.1.25/1


Stald, G., & Haddon, L. (2009). Cross-cultural contexts of research: Factors influencing the study of children and the internet in Europe. London: EU Kids Online. Retrieved on April 27, 2014 from: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/24380/ Stald, G., & Ólafsson, K. (2012). Mobile access – Different users, different risks, different consequences? In S. Livingstone, L. Haddon, & A. Görzig (Eds.), Children, risk and safety online: Research and policy challenges in comparative perspective (pp. 285–295). Bristol, UK: Policy Press. doi:10.1332/policypress/9781847428837.003.0022 Vanden Abeele, M., Campbell, S., Eggermont, S., & Roe, K. (2013). Sexting, mobile porn use and peer group dynamics: Boys’ and girls’ selfperceived popularity, need for popularity, and perceived peer pressure. Media Psychology, 17(1), 6–33. doi:10.1080/15213269.2013.801725 Vanden Abeele, M., & De Cock, R. (2013). Cyberbullying by mobile phone among adolescents: The role of gender and peer group status. Communications, 38(1), 107–118. doi:10.1515/ commun-2013-0006 Vincent, J., & Fortunati, L. (Eds.). (2009). Electronic emotion: The mediation of emotion via information and communication technologies. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang. Wilken, R., & Goggin, G. (2012). Mobile technology and place. London: Routledge.

ADDITIONAL READING Green, N., & Haddon, L. (2009). Mobile communications: an introduction to new media. Oxford: Berg. Ling, R. (2004). The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone’s Impact on Society. San Francisico. Morgan Kaufmann.

Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness. The embedding of mobile communication into society. Cambridge: MIT Press. Ling, R., & Bertel, T. (2013). Mobile communication culture among children and adolescents. In D. Lemish (Ed.), The Routledge international handbook of children, adolescents and media (pp. 127–133). London: Routledge. Livingstone, S. (2009). Children and the internet. Cambridge: Polity. Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., & Görzig, A. (Eds.), Children, risk and safety online: Research and policy challenges in comparative perspective. Bristol: Policy Press.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Connected Presence: Refers to the particular sense provided by mobile communication that the tie with other in the intimate sphere can be activated anytime, anywhere. This sense of proximity is often maintained through frequent, short and continuous communication (Licoppe, 2004). Cyberbullying: Relates to aggressive and mean behaviour directed to harm others, which is conducted through ICTs such as social network sites, mobile phones etc. Compared to face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying can be anonymous, is more persistent - due to the persistence and replicability of digital communication - and involves wider audiences, including “invisible audiences.” Electronic or Digital Leash: This expression is used to describe the meaning of mobile phones for parents, as a tool for extending parental control outside the domestic environment and for keeping track of children’s movements (Caron & Caronia, 2007; Ling, 2004). EU Kids Online: A multinational research network. It seeks to enhance knowledge of European children’s online opportunities, risks and safety. It

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uses multiple methods to map children’s experience of the internet. It sustains an active dialogue with national and European policy stakeholders. It has been funded by the EC’s Safer Internet Programme (subsequently renamed the Better Internet for Kids Programme). Net Children Go Mobile: A research project involving 9 European countries and co-funded by the EC’s Safer Internet Programme (subsequently renamed the Better Internet for Kids Programme) to investigate the consequences of the changing conditions of internet access and use among European children. It uses multiple methods to map children’s and adults’ experiences of the mobile Internet. Safety Link: The anywhere, anytime connectivity provided by the mobile phone facilitated its

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role as a “safety link” (Ling, 2012), especially in the parent-child relationship. The expression refers to the sense of personal safety and protection that arises from being able to dispense parental care at a distance - from the parents’ side - and to reach parents in case of problems - from children’s side. Sexting: Relates to the exchange of sexually explicit content online or via mobile phones and smartphones. It has been defined as the “exchange of sexual messages or images” (Livingstone et al., 2011) and “the creating, sharing and forwarding of sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images” (Lenhart, 2009). It may overlap with cyberbullying, e.g. when someone shares sexually explicit photos of their ex-girlfriend (more commonly) once they break up.