Mobile youth culture: A conceptual development

MYC as a symbolic demarcation of the adolescent life stage

The notion that MYC is a response to the separate social position of young people in contemporary society departs from the assumption of youth as a social category (Bolin, 2004). Youths’ separate social position is generally attributed to three historical processes. First, industrialism brought a massive relocation of young people to urban centers, as well as a division of labor requiring an extended period of schooling for particular jobs (Baumeister & Muraven, 1996; S. Frith, 1984). As child and youth labor became a focus of criticism, a growing recognition of “adolescence” emerged within the emerging social sciences and society in general (Arnett, 2010; France, 2007). Second, processes of urbanization and industrialization created new anxieties about the dangers of youth who were no longer under the control of local enforcers. Surveillance of youngsters was deemed necessary and enacted through legislation and institutionalized interventions (France, 2007). Third, capitalism brought into being “consumer culture” (Giddens, 1991), with youngsters as a new market segment with its own culture and lifestyle (Buckingham, 2011; France, 2007). Jointly, industrialism, surveillance, and capitalism led to the demarcation of an “adolescent” life stage, not only in legal terms and as an institutionalized position, but also symbolically, as a culture, “youth culture” (Fornäs & Bolin, 1995). In a society which lacks clear rites of passage to mark young people’s departure from childhood, youth culture provides young people with a way to collectively express a status of “youth” through commonalities in values, style, language, and behavior (Eisenstadt, 1956, 1962; Erikson, 1968; Giddens, 1991; Johansson & Miegel, 1992; Pedersen, 1994). Youth culture can thus be conceived of as a “taste culture” (cf. Bourdieu, 1979/1984) that serves the purpose of asserting “generational distinctiveness” (Buckingham, 2006).

A central assumption of the mobile youth culture concept is that, today, youths assert generational distinctiveness through their mobile media practices and meanings. Indeed, research shows that many of the mobile practices of youth contrast with those of younger and older age cohorts (e.g., Axelsson, 2010; Ling, 2010), and therefore constitute a collective identity of youth. According to Castells and colleagues, this MYC has “global relevance” since commonalities in mobile practices are found between young people across Europe, the US, and the Asia-Pacific region (2007, p. 194). The observation that contemporary MYC is a global youth culture, recognizable in common uses, meanings, and social implications of mobile communication technologies in the lives of young people is a first definitional element of the MYC concept.

A pertinent question that arises, is whether the mobile practices of contemporary teenagers are a life stage phenomenon (Ling, 2010) or whether these teenagers simply represent a new generation of “mobile natives” (in analogy to Prensky’s [2001] “digital natives”). It is not unlikely that some of the social changes assumed typical for adolescents today will persist into adulthood (cf. Bolin & Westlund, 2009; Castells et al., 2007, p. 247). Current studies on adolescent mobile media use, however, reveal consistent and cross-cultural evidence for “typically adolescent” practices and meanings independent of the time and rate of mobile media adoption by the teens in these cultures, that do not (or only to a limited extent) extend into adulthood (Castells et al., 2007; Ito, 2005; Katz, 2003). Ling’s (2010) time series analysis of messaging behavior among a large sample of Norwegian teens and adults, for example, revealed an unmistakable life stage effect: Across different cohorts there is a steady increase in the number of mobile messages sent from the age 12–13, with a peak in young adulthood (19–21 years old) after which messaging frequency steadily declines. This finding shows a common orientation of youth towards mobile media (Katz & Aakhus, 2002). The question that remains, however, is why certain mobile media practices, and not others, are deemed typical for adolescents. What draws most teenagers, for instance, to prefer mobile messaging to voice calling? A further exploration of the youth culture concept can aid in understanding why MYC takes its particular form.

MYC as an answer to the developmental challenges that youths face

During their transition into adulthood, most young people in Western, industrialized societies face common developmental challenges: they need to gradually detach themselves from the family (Hoffman, 1984; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986), develop their own identity by exploring and selecting the values and ideas they wish to commit to, and they need to decide on the future adult positions they wish to occupy, while choosing which intimate relationships they wish to invest in (Erikson, 1968; Marcia, 1980; Waterman, 1982). Different socialization agents, such as the family, the school, the legal system, the cultural belief system, and the peer group impact on the former process by providing youths with models and influences (cf. Arnett, 1995). When youths are “successfully socialized”—that is, they have acquired and internalized the behaviors and beliefs of their own culture—this will increase their chances to cope with, adapt to, and reproduce society’s institutions and structures in their adult life (Eisenstadt, 1956, 1962; S. Frith, 1984).

From a sociological perspective, youth culture smoothes the transition from youth into adulthood by managing tensions in the social system that may arise out of the socialization process (Brake, 1980). Youth culture does so by providing youths with a set of resources that help to accomplish developmental goals: via their involvement in youth culture, youths can express, support, and reinforce their autonomy; experiment with and express their identity; and build and maintain intimate relationships with peers. All this occurs, however, within the confines of a social world from which adults are excluded and over which they have little control. Young people themselves are the central producers and distributors of youth culture. They do not just imitate the adult world, but interpret, transform, and creatively appropriate elements of it into their own social world. As a result, the world views, behaviors, norms, and evaluative standards that make up youth culture can be regarded as “interpretive reproductions” of those that prevail in mainstream society (Corsaro & Eder, 1990, p. 200). By means of these interpretive reproductions, youth culture helps individual youths to socialize into their future roles, while simultaneously giving expression to their collective experiences in the social system (Brake, 1980; Coleman, 1961; Schwartz & Merten, 1967).

Media have played and continue to play an important role in youth culture, as media and their contents offer youths ample opportunities for (self-)socialization (Arnett, 1995). Music, for example, and its accompanying lyrics, music video clips, and celebrity culture provides young people with materials that can be used for identity construction (Bennett, 2000). Music can be used to express and achieve group membership (e.g., the “Metalheads”), and youths can negotiate their status in the peer group by means of their knowledge of and involvement in music (Bennett, 2000; Coleman, 1960, 1961; Thornton, 1995). In youth countercultures, music is oftentimes also used to symbolically protest against authority and/or the prevailing social order (Roe, 1995). Self-socialization is noticeable in the music preferences of young people, revealing their anticipatory socialization into their future roles (Roe, 1992).

If we draw a parallel between music and mobile media, we can understand the concept of a MYC by considering mobile media as resources that aid contemporary youth to socialize themselves and others, thereby resolving some of the tensions that result from the developmental trajectory that they undergo. The commonalities that we see in young people’s uses and understandings of mobile media, then, are not arbitrary, but an expression of collective experiences as they develop their identity, gain autonomy from their parents and authority figures, and build a basis of belongingness with peers in contemporary society. Whereas the structural demarcation of adolescence through common uses, meanings, and social implications of mobile communication technologies in the lives of youths can be regarded as the first definitional element of the MYC concept, this latter “developmental homogeneity” in youths’ mobile media use can be considered the second definitional element of the MYC concept.

A social logic of perpetual contact: Belongingness in MYC

The social logic of perpetual contact (cf. Katz & Aakhus, 2002) refers to the anytime and anyplace access to friends and family afforded by mobile communication technologies. This anytime anyplace connectivity has led to a new, “connected” mode of relational management, whereby physically distant others gain presence via a multitude of mediated communication gestures (Licoppe, 2004).

Among contemporary youth perpetual contact is established (among others) via mobile messaging systems (Bertel & Ling, 2014; Ling, 2010; Ling, Bertel, & Sundsoy, 2011). Young people have appropriated mobile messengers in such a way that communication via this mode is neither synchronous nor a-synchronous, but rather “near-synchronous” (cf. Rettie, 2009): in other words, conversations are ongoing throughout the day without the use of opening or closing statements (Vincent, 2014). It is the low-contact threshold and nondisruptive nature of mobile messaging that makes it easy for youths to pick up conversations where they were left off, thereby embracing mobile messaging as a means of belonging to and gaining support from the peer group 24/7 (Ling & Yttri, 2006; Vincent, 2014).

The near-synchronous nature of mobile messaging allows young people to carry out “real conversations” in which meaning is collaboratively constructed as the dialogue progresses (cf. Rettie, 2009). The near-synchronous nature of mobile messaging also makes it possible to carefully craft, edit, and review messages before they are sent. This gives young people greater control over the conversation and their self-presentation, thereby supporting processes of relationship formation and identity formation.

The complex sets of availability and reciprocity norms that structure the mobile messaging practices of youth are illustrative of how young people socialize each other. They use mobile communication to navigate through their social world, not only literally, when they “micro-coordinate” (Ling & Yttri, 2002) their offline social activities with friends (Ling, 2004; Vincent, 2014), but also figuratively, when they engage in the exchange of expressive messages (e.g., chatting, joking, gossiping, sending chain messages, etc.) to manage relationships with peers (Ling & Yttri, 2002, 2006). These expressive exchanges carry a phatic function and are part of gift-giving rituals (Oksman & Turtiainen, 2004; Taylor & Harper, 2003; Walsh, White, & Young, 2009). Similar to the ways in which teens’ knowledge and use of particular forms of dress or music can bring acceptance and status in the peer group (cf. Thornton, 1995), their understanding of and adherence to these rituals signals their belongingness to and their “cultural competence” in contemporary MYC (Caronia & Caron, 2004).

A network logic of anytime anyplace connectivity: Networked individualism in MYC

The network logic of anytime-anyplace connectivity refers to mobile media’s potential to engage in communication and information exchange irrespective of time and space (Castells, 2010; Castells et al., 2007; Rainie & Wellman, 2012). Mobile media enable people to (de-)activate their personal networks whenever and wherever they want, and to flexibly align their actions to changing circumstances over which they would otherwise have little control (Bertel, 2013). As “networked individuals,” people are therefore more autonomous in their everyday actions, yet also more responsible for them (Wellman, 2002).

The network logic is already recognizable in the symbolic meaning of phone ownership for youth. Acquiring a mobile phone is a “rite of passage” that signifies the social environment’s recognition that the teen is acquiring greater autonomy, both geographically, in terms of his/her independent mobility (Pain et al., 2005), and socially, in the development of his/her own personal networks (Blair & Fletcher, 2010). Mobile phones thus function as cultural artifacts that mark a young person’s entrance into adolescence (Castells et al., 2007; Ling, 2001; Ling & Yttri, 2002, 2006). Not only phone ownership has a symbolic meaning, however. Elements such as the number of phone contacts one has and the number of text messages one receives have symbolic value for young people, as they may function as evaluative standards for their “network centrality” (cf. Gest, Graham-Bermann, & Hartup, 2001) and popularity in the peer group (e.g., Ling, 2004; Ling & Yttri, 2006).

Mobile practices in which both the network logic and youths’ socialization processes are highly visible are those that involve the use of mobile media to communicate and exchange contents that are on the margin of what is considered legitimate, such as sexting or pornographic imagery. The network logic inherent in mobile communication technologies enables young people to exchange such contents in the peer network under the radar of adult supervision (Ling, 2005b). Social processes surround the exchange of these quasi-illicit contents: producing, sending, sharing, and receiving “deviant” contents can bring peer acceptance and popularity, but also peer rejection (e.g., in the case of slut-shaming). These exchanges have developmental relevance, as they aid young people in learning about, exploring, and experimenting with both their sexuality and their social interaction skills (e.g., Bond, 2010; Ling, 2005b; Vanden Abeele, Campbell, Eggermont, & Roe, 2014).

Mobile media do not only support autonomy but also challenge it, for example by enabling parents to engage in remote parental supervision of their offspring’s whereabouts and activities (Christensen, 2009; Pain et al., 2005). Young people respond to this supervision, however, by developing rules, rituals, and strategies for their interactions with parents through which they resist parental authority and regain control (e.g., pretending the battery is dead; Pain et al., 2005).

A logic of personalization: Personalizing time, space, relationships, and devices in MYC

Campbell and Park (2008) claim that we are currently witnessing a transition from a network society to a personal communication society because the dominant process of social change in contemporary society is that of personalization. This process is embodied in personal communication technologies such as the mobile phone. These technologies enable personalization in multiple areas of our lives. We can, for example, personalize time because mobile media afford the continuous renegotiation of our schedules and we can personalize public space by leaving digital traces in the public domain (Campbell & Park, 2008).

For adolescents, perhaps the most salient example of how the personal logic of communication technologies is amplified in their life, is the use of mobile media as a personalized fashion object (Campbell & Park, 2008). For many young people mobile devices are part of their clothing and, therefore, belong to the arena of fashion (Fortunati, 2002, 2005). Consequently, they attach importance to aspects such as the brand and design of their phones (Caronia & Caron, 2004; Skog, 2002) and align them with their general sense of style by personalizing them with carefully selected ring-tones, wallpapers, screen logos, and accessories such as protective cases and/or phone jewelry (Castells et al., 2007; Katz & Sugiyama, 2005; Ling, 2004).

The use of mobile media as personalized fashion objects is not the prerogative of youth alone. During adolescence, however, this symbolic use of mobile media is intense (Campbell & Park, 2008), because it is “not just fashion, but identity” (Castells et al., 2007, p. 219). Katz and Sugiyama (2005, 2006) noticed that the phone works both as an “individual value-statement” and as a “status symbol”: The symbolic value of the phone lies in its potential to simultaneously express the owner’s self-identity as well as his/her collective identity. The aesthetic qualities of mobile media (and their accessories) are thus reflections of both personal style and of group membership (Caronia & Caron, 2004; Ling, 2004; Skog, 2002; Walsh et al., 2009).

Mobile media also enable youth to personalize public place. Young people are oftentimes regarded as a potential threat to the social order because adults consider their hanging out in public places as inappropriate behavior (Malone, 2002). Mobile media offer them new means to contest adult control over public space. Young people can, for example, physically claim public place by using the phone to listen to music and/or to engage in playful place-based activities, such as making pictures and videos with friends (Castells et al., 2007). Via new location-based social networking applications, they can also virtually claim public space (e.g., in Foursquare they can literally become “mayor” of a place). The norms about the do’s and don’ts when using these services (e.g., how to respond to a friend’s check-in; J. Frith, 2014; Humphreys, 2007) illustrate how young people negotiate relationship formation and maintenance in contemporary society.

Overlooking heterogeneity in youths’ mobile media use

By focusing on commonalities in use, we may risk overlooking the heterogeneity in youths’ mobile media practices. Recognizing a global MYC, however, by no means implies that all young people are essentially alike in terms of their mobile media use. As a general youth culture, contemporary MYC may encompass a plurality of mobile practices and understandings (cf. Fornäs & Bolin, 1995). The differences between young people indicate that they are not “passive performers” when using mobile media. They may differ in the way in which they perceive and act upon the qualities and constraints of the technology depending on the intense (and sometimes problematic) identity work that they go through, thereby shaping, altering, and reproducing the meaning and the implications of mobile technology in their lives (cf. Castells, 2010; Hutchby, 2001).

Several authors have cautioned against making extensive claims about MYC as a “youth monoculture.” Differences between young people need attention, including how these are situated in particular local (cultural and economic) contexts (Goggin & Crawford, 2011; Haddon, 2007; Haddon & Vincent, 2009). This proposition is not new. From the 1970s on, the functional sociological approach to “youth culture” has been criticized for excessively treating young people as homogeneous and for not offering an explanation for their differences (S. Frith, 1984). The emphasis on a separate youth culture, characterized by values and norms that conflict with those of the adult culture (e.g., Coleman, 1960, 1961; Eisenstadt, 1956, 1962), was challenged by empirical findings showing that the difference between the value system of adults and youth lies in the extent of their (dis-)approval rather than in the opposition of these two positions (e.g., Eve, 1975), and that many adults and young people adhere to similar “superficial” values (e.g., Berger, 1963a). Youth culture scholars also found that involvement in general (hedonistic) youth culture was most notable among lower class youths, while limited support was found for a youth culture among middle-class youths (e.g., Elkin & Westley, 1955). In that context, Berger (1963b) noted that the popular notion of a “deviant,” “hedonistic” youth culture is not something to be attributed to “chronological age” but rather to the structural circumstances in which some young people live (e.g., their class position).

With the latter argument, Berger aligned himself with the position of subcultural theorists who take a more structural approach to youth (sub)cultures (and youth lifestyles). These theorists consider structural difference (rather than development or socialization) as the central explanatory mechanism for involvement in youth culture. A plethora of research indeed testifies that youth cultures are attractive for adolescents who experience “problematic trajectories” into adulthood as a result of the impact of dominant status hierarchies on their lives, such as ethnicity, social class background, and/or position in the school system (Berger, 1963b; Blackman, 2005; Brake, 1980; Hendry, Kloep, & Olsson, 1998; Jensen, 2006; McCulloch, Stewart, & Lovegreen, 2006; Roe, 1995; Shildrick & MacDonald, 2006). Since the adolescent life stage socializes young people into their future roles, it is understandable that those to whom these status hierarchies ascribe an identity of lower social standing, seek refuge in an alternative, compensatory status system. Youth culture offers such an alternative status system to these youths, one in which they can achieve status by other means than scholastic achievement (Brake, 1980; Coleman, 1960, 1961; Jensen, 2006; Stinchcombe, 1964).

Such structural differences can also be found within MYC. Recent studies, for example, show an association between scholastic achievement and the use of and attitude towards mobile media as status symbols (Skog, 2002; Vanden Abeele & Roe, 2013). Structural heterogeneity in MYC can also be found in the mobile practices of youth on the margin of what is considered legitimate, such as sexting or the use and exchange of mobile pornography. Similar to the way deviant behavior in youth (sub)cultures oftentimes reflects teenagers’ simultaneous defense from and orientation towards their future roles (Davies, 1999; Roe, 1992; Staff & Kreager, 2008), the sexual double standard for boys and girls that is at play in teenagers’ sexting practices, for example, lets teens explore, learn about, and sometimes symbolically resist prevailing gender norms.

It is crucial that future research on MYC incorporates the heterogeneity within MYC to further our understanding of it. As Katz (2003) argues, such analysis informs, extends, and challenges the ways in which we can conceptualize the role of mobile communication technology in our everyday lives and society. One way to account for the heterogeneity in adolescent mobile media use, is to examine to what extent particular constellations of mobile practices co-occur among young people, thereby forming “mobile lifestyles” (cf. Vanden Abeele, 2014; Wilska, 2003). If we consider these mobile lifestyles as systems of “classified and classifying practices” (Bourdieu, 1979/1984) that originate out of young people’s “habitus,” we may come closer to understanding the interplay between mobile media technology and the social organization of society.

Overlooking the integration of mobile media into young people’s media repertoires

Traditional media contents are increasingly accessible via mobile platforms (e.g., a magazine’s mobile website) and traditional media themselves are increasingly converging or migrating to a mobile form (e.g., a magazine’s mobile app). In addition, mobile media themselves keep evolving in form and function so that they increasingly afford anytime-anyplace access and connectivity via a most personal device (e.g., the 5G smartphone and wearable [health] technologies). In light of these evolutions, the notion of contemporary youth culture as a youth culture in which mobile media are a primary means for the socialization and structural demarcation of contemporary youths is likely to remain appropriate. Future research will need to examine, however, how (self)socialization manifests itself in the use of these new mobile devices, applications, and contents.

Nevertheless the ongoing convergence to mobile platforms, we should not overlook the importance of nonmobile media platforms and contents in the media repertoire of contemporary youths. In addition, we should be attentive to the ways in which young people select and combine these and the different mobile devices, applications, and contents in their everyday life. The triple articulation framework (cf. Hartmann, 2006) can be used to understand the way in which young people build both mobile and nonmobile devices, applications, and contents into their media routines (Courtois, Mechant, Paulussen, & De Marez, 2012). The framework, having its origins in domestication theory (Silverstone, Hirsch, & Morley, 1992), departs from the assumption that in the current convergent media landscape, the meaning of media consumption arises out of a triple articulation—of the media device (i.e., the material artefacts), the media text (i.e., the media content), and the consumption context (Hartmann, 2006).

Research on young people’s media practices indeed reveals how each of these factors independently contributes to the overall meaning of media consumption in the lives of youth. In the study of Courtois et al. (2012), for example, a boy reports using different media platforms (i.e., different objects) for music consumption: Television to become acquainted to new music, a computer to download the music, and a mobile phone to actually listen to it. Another boy retreats from the living room to his bedroom (i.e., to another context) to play violent video games to avoid negative reactions from the family. These examples illustrate how the triple articulation framework can be used to understand how meaning emerges out of the interplay between different media platforms, contents, and contexts in the life of young people. Future research may examine to what extent these kinds of media practices and routines that involve multiple objects, contents, and contexts, are a meaningful part of contemporary youth culture. Research could address, for example, the meanings that arise out of the object–text interaction when consuming media and their contents during formal versus informal activities or while hanging out in public versus private places.

Overlooking cross-generational implications of mobile technology

A basic premise of the MYC concept is that mobile media guide processes of identity formation, autonomy, and relationship formation that take place during adolescence. The extant research on adolescent mobile media use demonstrates the merits of such an approach (e.g., Ling, 2004; Ling & Yttri, 2006). Goggin and Crawford (2011, p. 257), however, warn that considering “the process of development, the importance of peers, and the solving of daily issues as something characteristic of teenagers alone” may lead us to overlook implications of mobile technologies for younger and older generations.

Indeed, mobile media already play a central role in the (social) development of younger children, both via the contents and applications that they offer and via the practices surrounding their adoption and use. For example, the gendered nature of young children’s play on mobile media devices (see Chaudron et al., 2015, for examples), illustrates how mobile media are already integrated into early socialization processes.

With respect to adult populations, the social and economic changes that characterize contemporary late modern society have eroded the distinction between the unstable, “dependent” adolescent who lacks in maturity and the stable, “independent” self-sustaining adult. Identity formation has become an ongoing process sustained throughout adulthood as people are continuously forced to choose, self-improve, and/or adapt to new circumstances (Giddens, 1991). Mobile media can play a role in supporting these processes by aiding people to cope with new circumstances and the choices they bring forth. Research shows, for example, that migrant workers rely on mobile and social media to socialize both locally and at a distance, thereby facilitating the emergence of a “transnational identity” (Komito, 2011).

Overlooking the impact of culture and context rather than development

The impact of culture and institutional, political, and economic contexts should also not be overlooked. Institutional rules and markers (e.g., concerning schooling or legal drinking age) often demarcate “youth” more strongly than mere age. The claim that institutional markers exercise a great impact is illustrated by the differences in the “critical age of mobile phone ownership” across societies. In most countries, ownership typically rises exponentially around the start of teens’ high school careers (e.g., Ling & Yttri, 2002). In a sample of American youths, however, Blair and Fletcher (2010), associated phone adoption with receiving one’s driver’s license. Mobile phone acquisition thus oftentimes accompanies other “rites of passage” of the culture in which youths live.

In a similar fashion, political or economic contexts may impact on MYC. Text messaging, for example, is commonly regarded as a typical practice of youth because its unique affordances support adolescent social development. However, the (initially free) price structure of text messaging also played and continues to play a role in explaining its popularity (Taylor & Vincent, 2005). In a similar fashion, Bolin (2010) attributes the prominence of mobile voice calling among young Estonians (in comparison to young persons in other countries) to the reduced access to landline telephony in Estonia.

The previous examples illustrate how local contexts remain an important explanatory factor for the way in which mobile media are appropriated by young people. We should thus be cautious in interpreting age-related findings as simple evidence of development rather than of a combination of development and culture/context (Goggin & Crawford, 2011). Future research can shed light on these “glocalized” manifestations of MYC by examining how youths interpret and rework global mobile practices.