Mobiles in public: Social interaction in a smartphone era

Introduction

In 2015, well-known technology researcher and social commentator Sherry Turkle wrote “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk.” In this piece for the New York Times, Turkle laments the mobile phone’s negative impact on face-to-face social interactions. She writes that phones inhibit the ability to read and understand others’ emotions, beget more superficial conversations, and lead to a decrease in empathy for others. She draws on her own field research into the psychology of internet and technology use to back up these claims. Turkle’s research participants acknowledge that mobile phones open up many communicative and information opportunities, but there are competing pressures to be available online and be present with others (Turkle, 2011).

Since Turkle’s article in 2015, the amount of time per day that Americans spend on their phones has almost doubled to 203 minutes per day of non-voice mobile media use (eMarketer, 2018). Estimates suggest people check their phones 46 times a day on average (Eadicicco, 2015). These estimates rise for younger demographics, with 18 to 24-year-olds estimated to check their phones upwards of 74 times a day. Americans are highly conflicted about their mobile phone use. As much as 54% of teens and 36% of parents report feeling as though they spend too much time on their phones (Jiang, 2018). As with other third-person media effects (Gunther, Perloff, & Tsfati, 2008), mobile phone users are more likely to feel that others spend too much time on their phones than themselves (Jiang, 2018).

Researchers have suggested the pressures to be “always on” and available to others pull people to their phones (Middleton, 2007; Turkle, 2008; Katz & Aarkus, 2003). That said, there seems to be mixed research on the social impacts of using mobile phones in the presence of others. On one hand, some research has found that increased mobile phone use was associated with decreased perceived responsiveness and even interaction and relationship dissatisfaction (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2016, 2018; Halpern & Katz, 2017; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012; Vanden Abeele, Antheunis, & Schouten, 2016). Other research suggests people have largely adapted to the increased proliferation of mobile phones and are not negatively affected by others’ use in their presence (Cahir & Lloyd, 2015; Gonzales & Wu, 2016).

However, most of these studies rely on either self-report and laboratory experiments, which are limited in their ability to validly ascertain how mobile phone users behave in the course of their everyday lives. Often mobile phone use is habitual and even tacit (Eadicicco, 2015; Humphreys, 2005), so people may not even realize how they use and respond to phones. Therefore, we conducted an observational field study of the behaviors surrounding mobile phone use. Specifically focusing on dyadic and small group interactions in public spaces, our study provides detailed behavioral data regarding how mobile technology is used and responded to in everyday life. To do this, we replicated the methods of data collection in the same field site as Humphreys’ (2005) field study of mobile phones to enable us identify similarities and differences in the contemporary smartphone era.

Theoretical frameworks

Humphreys’ (2005) original study of mobile phone use in public sought to analyze “the modifications, innovations and violations of cellphone usage on tacit codes of social interactions” (p. 810). Methodologically, she conducted observational fieldwork supplemented with interviews to explore mobile phone use in public. Theoretically, she drew on two primary models of social interaction: (a) normative behavior in public space (Goffman, 1971) and (b) telephone interactions (Hopper, 1992). As with other early work on mobile phones (e.g., Hoflich, 2005, 2006a, 2006b; Ito, Okabe, & Matsuda, 2005; Lasen, 2003), Humphreys was interested in how mobile phones change peoples’ interactions within public space. She writes, “Together, Goffman and Hopper provide models for understanding the introduction of cellphones into public spaces—specifically, how the technology may influence normative social interaction, as well as how traditional landline phone use may change when phones can be used in more public contexts” (2005, p. 812).

More specifically, Humphreys (2005) draws on Goffman’s notion of crosstalk (1971) to describe the behaviors associated with social vulnerability that occur when someone in a dyad uses a phone in public. She argues that when a member of a dyad or with answers their phone in public, the other member of dyad becomes a single, which is associated with greater social vulnerability in public (see Figure 1). Humphreys found that the new single would either (a) engage in a variety of self-defensive behaviors to justify their newly single status (see Figure 2), or (b) engage the former partner to perform dual front interactions both with them and the person on the other end of phone (see Figure 3). Humphreys did find some evidence to suggest that triadic interaction could occur if the co-located person on the phone acted as a translator, relaying information across the triad but this was rare. Most of the phone behaviors that Humphreys describes were answering and talking on mobile phones, hence she called the behaviors “cellphone crosstalk.” Texting did not occur frequently and phones did not do much beyond call and text in 2003 in the United States (US). According to Humphreys, cellphone crosstalk resulted in social vulnerability or anxiety on the part of the former with, which people may try to mitigate through self-defensive behaviors.

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Figure 1.

Diagram of crosstalk.

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Figure 2.

Diagram of cellphone crosstalk.

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Figure 3.

Diagram of cellphone crosstalk with potential stage 4, dual front interaction.

The second framework that Humphreys (2005) used to analyze the findings was Robert Hopper’s (1992) notion of caller hegemony. Prior to default caller ID settings, there was an inherent power imbalance between caller and receiver because the caller had all of the information regarding the interaction (i.e., who is calling whom and for what reason), whereas the receiver only knew they were being summoned, but not by whom or for what reason. Being at an informational deficit relegates the receiver to a necessary responsive state that requires answering a ringing phone regardless of their current activity. Humphreys (2005) uses caller hegemony to explain why people responded to their mobile phones in public even when they were socializing with others and would be considered violating social norms. Although one of the motivating tensions surrounding the original study may no longer be as relevant, namely how landline use changes in more public contexts, the question of how technology influences normative social interactions remains an important question as mobile technologies continue to develop and change.

Method

To answer these questions, we replicated Humphreys’ (2005) field study, revisiting the same field site 15 years after the original study was conducted. Although the methods and field site were replicated, due to the significant technological changes in mobile phones, we would not necessarily expect to find the same results (Burawoy, 2003). That said, by following similar protocols to the original, we can compare behaviors over time to identify important changes in the evolving use of and response to mobile technology (Babbie, 1989; Benoit & Holbert, 2008).

During the summer of 2017, we conducted the replication study in public spaces in Philadelphia, specifically focusing on the University City and Center City areas of Philadelphia, which was the primary field site of the original study. University City is on the west side of Philadelphia and has a large student population due to Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania being located there. Center City Philadelphia has a strong mix of public squares, museums, corporate offices, residential apartments/condos, retail, and dining. Following Humphreys’ (2005) study, we conducted fieldwork at the 30^th Street train station, various parks, coffee shops, cafes, and restaurants. As in the original study, we varied the time of day as well as the day of the week to ensure a variety of potential people and behaviors to be observed. We also focused attention on dyadic or small group interactants where phones were visibly present or used. We noted not only what the phone user did, but we also paid attention to the responses of individuals who were not on the phone to gauge nonverbal reactions to mobile phone use. Following Adler and Adler (1994), observational field notes were taken, explicitly noting differences between observable behaviors and interpretations (e.g., observation: male 1 with slight downturned mouth looked away with from partner on phone; interpretation: male 1 seemed frustrated). This kind of note-taking technique helps to minimize researcher bias in field work (ibid.).

In total, 100 hours of observational fieldwork and 15 intercept interviews were conducted throughout these neighborhoods. The original 2005 study only conducted six intercept interviews and 12 with undergraduate students. Given that we are not students at the University of Pennsylvania, as Humphreys was at the time of her study, we opted to exclusively conduct intercept interviews in Philadelphia and did not rely on a student population. Intercept interviews are interviews recruited and conducted at the same time on the spot and typically last about 15–20 minutes. Our intercept interview protocol largely followed Humphreys’ original intercept protocol and sought to triangulate the observational work. We recruited people whom we had seen use a mobile phone in public and who were alone. In total we recruited eight participants who self-identified as a female or woman and seven as male, ages ranged from 18 to 62, with an average age of 32. Humphreys did not ask about demographic information from her participants, but we included this. When asked how participants would describe their racial and ethnic identity, six identified as Black, three identified as Caucasian, one as African American, one as White, one as Hispanic, one as Jewish, one as Indian, and one as Asian.

Overall, we replicated the interview guide from Humphreys’ study. The key topics of the interview included: how long participants have had a phone, how and when participants decide to use their phones, how participants use their phones around others, and how participants respond when others use their phones around them, (see Appendix 1 for interview guide). We slightly modified the interview question about frequency of use from the original guide. Instead of asking, “On average, how often would you say you use it—several times daily, once a day, a couple times a week, less than once a week?” We removed the time frames and just asked “On average how often would you say you use your phone?” We also added a question regarding how people would react if someone was on their phone for a while (to explore in more detail potential ostracism reactions). We also included a question on read receipts to originally explore issues of informational inequities, but which is beyond the scope of this analysis because it was fundamentally about managing mediated expectations rather than face-to-face phone use and response. Finally, we included the new demographic questions. ¹

The analysis of observational fieldnotes and interview transcripts was primarily conducted by the first author, with consultation and, when necessary, clarification from the second author. Although Humphreys (2005) does not describe her analytical approach, we conducted axial coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) of themes surrounding each key interview topics. Of the fieldnotes, we coded for Humphreys’ (2005) concepts of caller hegemony, power asymmetries, dual front interaction, and crosstalk among the behavioral findings, as well as novel behaviors.

Findings

Although we found behavioral evidence for cellphone crosstalk and dual front interaction, the behaviors associated with those activities have changed since the early 2000s. We also found evidence for new mobile phone behaviors such as parallel mediated crosstalk, where both partners use their phones simultaneously to become mediated withs, as well as collective mediated crosstalk, where the phone becomes integrated into the conversation as opposed to pulling participants away. Lastly, we did not find behavioral evidence for caller hegemony because of the lack of mobile voice calls observed, but did find another form of informational asymmetry that pulls people to their phones in a similar manner. We describe each of these in turn.

Crosstalk then and now

In the current fieldwork, we found evidence for what might best be called mediated crosstalk—individuals looking at or picking up their phones when with other people (see Figure 4). We saw very few people take voice calls on their mobile phones. Whereas voice calls were the predominant cellphone crosstalk activity in the US in the early 2000s (Humphreys, 2005), the prominent crosstalk behavior in 2017 was looking at, swiping, and tapping on smartphones. We observed many people glancing at their phones or quickly picking them up, but far fewer actually using it for more than a few seconds at a time.

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Figure 4.

Diagram of mediated crosstalk.

Indeed, interviewees suggested that different tasks on the phone are considered more acceptable to perform in front of others. For example, several participants mentioned they would interrupt a conversation to answer a call or text from their parents, but not from a number or contact they did not know. Interview participants also mentioned excusing themselves to take a call or to respond to text. For example, one participant explained what she would do if she got a phone call: “I’d say ‘Oh, excuse me.’ Then look at who it was and if it’s either my partner, or my sister, or my mother I’d answer it and if it isn’t one of them, I’d just turn it off.” Excusing oneself is an important social acknowledgement that can mitigate social faux pas (Ware & Linkugel, 1973). Moreover, Cahir and Lloyd (2015) found that this kind of excusing is important care work that can mitigate negative impacts among interactants.

Social context matters. Interview participants reflected on how the context of an interaction shaped whether and how they used their phones. As one participant notes, situational contexts that are more casual can enable mobile texting:

I think it also depends on the situation. So if we are conversing then it’s like “ok, c’mon, I’m trying to communicate with you.” And it depends on the topic. If it’s just one of those things where we are just having fun, then it’s whatever. But if we are having a heart to heart, I want you engaged. (Hispanic male, age 27)

For this participant, the context of the interaction matters for whether it is appropriate to use a phone when with someone else. If he is having a serious conversation with someone then he would not use his phone and expects the same of his friend. However, if he is just casually hanging out with friends, mobile phone use is not a problem. This is in line with Cahir and Lloyd’s (2015) study on mobile texting. As mobile communication in public has shifted from synchronous to increasingly asynchronous (Ling, 2008), it enables people to more easily weave it into their face-to-face casual social interactions.

Parallel mediated crosstalk

Previously when a mobile phone summoned a member of a with, there were a variety of socially defensive behaviors that new singles would engage in, such as eating, drinking, or just looking away (Humphreys, 2005). Occasionally a new single would take out their phone and look at it, but Humphreys reports this was rare. In our study, we observed people looking directly at their former with who was looking at their phone, as well as looking away. But we also observed new singles looking at their own phones when their former partners looked at theirs. This was also reflected in our interviews:

Interviewer: If you were with a friend and they got a call…

Participant (Asian male, age 20): (interrupts) I would check my phone

Interviewer: You would check your phone when they get their call? If they stepped away, you would check your phone?

Participant: Yeah, yeah.

Using one’s own phone was a commonly observed responsive behavior when one person in the with picked up their phone. This kind of crosstalk behavior might best be called parallel mediated crosstalk (see Figure 5). In this situation, the with becomes two withs, each person paired with their phones or other devices, thus may mitigate the social vulnerability that comes from being a single in public.

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Figure 5.

Diagram of parallel mediated crosstalk.

We observed two versions of parallel mediated crosstalk. The first version is where dyadic face-to-face interaction is the primary activity and parallel phone use only emerges for a minute or so. In the second version, participants’ primary activity is on their device and the face-to-face interaction is a secondary activity, where face-to-face talk only punctuates the phone or computer use.

Although the distinctions between the two versions sometimes were blurred, there were common ways that parallel crosstalk emerged. In particular, the first version often emerged towards what seemed to be the end of a social interaction. For example, here is a description of the first version of parallel mediated crosstalk:

Seated directly outside of the café are two older-aged seemingly Latina women (Woman 1 and Woman 2) eating together. The two women sat eating and conversing face-to-face uninterrupted for 20 minutes. Woman 1 then pulled out her phone after finishing her meal, which then seemingly prompted Woman 2 to pull out her phone as well. Both women checked their phones for a couple of minutes, not looking at or talking to one another. Then Woman 1 put her phone away and said her goodbyes. Woman 2 continued on her phone for a minute or 2 more before departing too.

In the description above, the women were engaged in multiple activities: seeing and talking to each other, and eating lunch for 20 minutes. When they had finished eating, they then each took out their phones. During these 2 minutes, they did not talk to or look at each other, thus each retreating to their mediated withs. Because both women used their phones potentially in response to one another but also simultaneously, such behaviors would likely not have created extensive social vulnerability for either woman. Indeed, we observed a number of interactions that seemed to end with people checking their phones. We did not interpret the phones as the impetus for ending the interaction because we did not observe nonverbal behaviors associated with frustration or anger due to phone use. Instead it seemed that after maintaining exclusive face-to-face interactions, there was a natural break or pause such that people mutually but tacitly agreed they could check their phones after having been away from them for a while.

The second version of parallel mediated crosstalk occurs when the primary activity is interacting with one’s mobile device and only occasionally is interrupted by face-to-face conversation. This kind of activity was observed particularly in the University City area of Philadelphia, which has a large university student population. In parallel mediated crosstalk, it is almost as if the face-to-face conversation interrupts the mediated interactions, but this interruption seems unproblematic. When people were co-present and on their devices, we observed very few behavioral indications of frustration or consternation regarding being interrupted from their mediated withs by the other person.

One way that mediated crosstalk seemed to have less impact on the social interaction was when the with involved more than two people. When we observed withs of three or four and someone took out their phone, it did not seem to impact the behaviors or mannerisms of the others as much as it did in a dyadic with. Unlike Turkle’s (2011) description of such interactions, we observed few behavioral indicators of the negative impact of such mediated crosstalk on the interactants. We did not observe sighing, eye rolling, staring, frowning or furrowed brows in reaction to phone use among groups of three, four or five, which we did occasionally observe in dyadic mediated crosstalk. It is possible the impacts of this phone use were cognitive and thus unobservable or perhaps the group interactions we observed in public spaces were more casual. Thus, any mobile phone use that pulled someone out of an interaction many have less impact on those interactions as opposed to more formal or intimate interactions. Goffman (1971) would suggest that in groups of three or more, the others are still part of the with even if mediated crosstalk occurs. Thus no one is made a single and more socially vulnerable, hence such phone use would not have the same social ramifications.

Dual front interaction then and now

Dual front interaction was originally described as simultaneously engaging in verbal communication with a person on the phone, while nonverbally communicating to the person physically co-present (Humphreys, 2005). Although the phone call often took precedence over the face-to-face interaction, the nonverbal communication sometimes became a secret backchannel, for example, when people were observed rolling their eyes when using their phones. These interactions seemed to acknowledge the mutual and competing responsibilities of the phone owner to both the person calling and the person physically co-present.

In the current study, there was evidence of continued dual front interaction; however, the behaviors changed. We did not observe many voice calls, but instead found that people would verbally communicate with their co-located partner while looking down at their phones (see Figure 6). Occasionally we observed phone users looking at their co-located partner while typing on their phones, but generally people’s gazes were on their phones although they appeared to be listening to their partners and would intermittently look up as if to confirm their listening. As in the original study, dual front interaction was not observed very often.

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Figure 6.

Diagram of dual front mediated crosstalk.

Collective mediated crosstalk

One new behavior we observed fairly often was what we call collective mediated crosstalk. This occurred when the smartphone was integrated into the original dyadic interaction (see Figure 7). Traditionally, by formally introducing the new person to the crosstalk with, they can become a triad and avoid socially ostracizing the new single. Goffman (1971) suggests this is often the polite thing to do. In collective mediated crosstalk, the smartphone is introduced as an interactant partner, such that the phone and owner do not form an exclusive with, but integrate all three actors such that the dyad becomes a triad. In this situation, the phone is not someone or something that takes one’s attention away from the with, but contributes to a triadic with.

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Figure 7.

Diagram of collective mediated crosstalk.

One example from our field study describes a scene in Rittenhouse Square, a well-loved public park in Philadelphia:

A young White couple, who appear to be in their early 20s, sit together on one of the park benches. The guy has his arm around the girl looking around at park goers, while the girl has her head down looking at her phone. After a minute, the girl began to play music aloud from the device. While playing a song, the girl raised the phone to the ear of the guy (seemingly so he could hear it more clearly in what was a busy park). They listened to the song for a minute before the girl put her phone away and the two started staring out onto the park. This continued for about 15 minutes as the couple conversed, never again pulling out their phones.

In this example, the phone becomes a link between the two interactants. Other examples include people taking pictures of their co-located partners or showing what seem to be pictures on their phones to each other. We saw people at the train station looking at maps together on one of their phones. In these instances, the presence of the phone sometimes began as mediated crosstalk but then became collective as the smartphone is introduced to the new single. The showing of one’s phone to another was not observed in Humphreys’ (2005) field study in the early 2000s, but was not uncommon in our fieldwork.

Caller hegemony then and now

Our findings suggest an important shift from caller hegemony to what might be called notification hegemony. People oriented to the buzzing, lighting up, or ringing of their phones, but it seldom resulted in answering a voice call. Often people would gaze at their phones and then seemingly decide whether answer them. But the initial orientation suggests a kind of hegemony where the user does not initially know why their phone is summoning them, thus the informational power imbalance remains. Interview participants described the process of choosing whether to pick up the phone:

Participant (Black woman, age 37): If it’s an emergency that I really have to take, because I do look at it, I’ll excuse myself, then make a call or send a text. If I don’t think it’s an emergency right there, I won’t really do anything. I’ll put it away until later.

Interviewer: So how would that play out?

Participant: I would say, “Can I excuse myself? I have to take this.” Something like that, in a respectful manner. You know, smooth with it.

As this participant acknowledged, she always looks at her phone when it buzzes, but she does not always answer it or respond right away. Several participants mentioned that if it was a family member who was calling they would typically answer, but would be sure to excuse themselves before they did.

Figure 8 illustrates the state of notification hegemony that mobile phone users must manage. People are always summonable by their phone when they are out with others. Thus, this can be a continual presence within the dyadic interactions, especially when phones are placed face up on a table between them. We did observe people occasionally turning their phones face down after seeing a notification as if to mitigate the visual disruption of future notifications during the social interaction. Phones on tables or in hands were a common sight in the study.

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Figure 8.

Diagram of notification hegemony.

Some participants were quite thoughtful about how they managed their phone summoning when in public with others and described feeling conflicted. As one participant reflected at the end of the interview:

I think the most interesting thing about all these questions is when I say “I hate when people are on their phones in front of me” but I do it too. It’s like I know deep down that using a phone could be rude or disrespectful but I do it anyway. It’s kind of hypocritical to be like, “I hate when people use phones but I use my phone all the time.” I wish I didn’t use my phone as much as I do. (Caucasian female, age 28)

Statements such as these are typically considered evidence for problematic mobile phone use (Takao, Takahashi, & Kitamura, 2009). However, we want to suggest that it is evidence of notification hegemony, where people are continually summoned by their phones and because of norms of availability there is always the concern that it could be “important” or an “emergency.”

Discussion

Our study contributes to the understanding of the impact of mobile phones in public in several important ways. First, the study provides nuanced behavioral evidence for the ways that mobile phones have become integrated into social interactions. In particular, we identify behaviors such as collective mediated crosstalk and parallel mediated crosstalk in addition to mediated crosstalk and dual front interaction, which demonstrate the myriad of ways that phones have become so well integrated into our everyday lives that they act as connective and atomizing forces (Cahir & Lloyd, 2015; Gonzales & Wu, 2016; Ling, 2012). Phones are not only important sources of information, but also can become actors within the interaction that can enhance and contribute to social interactions among people as well as detract people from their face to face partners. It is important to point out that behaviors often moved between different kinds of mobile phone use during dyadic interactions. Mediated crosstalk often became parallel mediated crosstalk and then collective and sometimes back again. Empirically, this suggests researchers should examine flows or trajectories of mobile phone behaviors rather than just binary mobile use or non-use.

Our study also highlights the subtle differences between talking on versus looking at phones, which have several implications for social ostracization and privacy. As Humphreys (2005) noted, talking gave a sense of what the mobile phone user is doing, even if the new single was politely supposed to ignore it. However, the silent looking at phones provides little context or content of use for the interactant partner. Thus, people have to use verbal cues to explain why they are using the phone. The observed behavior of the new single looking at their partner may be motivated by seeking out interactional information about what their former partner is doing either as a self-defense mechanism or as collective phone use. Today much of the mediated crosstalk behavior is silent, so new singles may have little indication what their partner is doing if there was no discussion or prompting for why they picked up the phone. This lack of cues may have detrimental effects on how the new single interprets the behaviors of their partner, potentially leading to a greater sense of ostracism. Singles thus may experience mediated crosstalk more negatively than cellphone (voice call) crosstalk because they may have little to no information for how to interpret such social isolation.

In contrast, this silent looking at a phone can be more private for the mobile user than talking and potentially less aurally disruptive to group dynamics (≥3) as well. Excusing oneself or engaging in dual front interaction may help to mitigate the social vulnerability experienced from becoming a new single. Mobile phone users who engage in dual front interaction, however, must manage divided attention. As Gonzales and Wu (2016) suggest, such divided attention may be interpreted differently based on individual attitudes toward the changing nature of mobile technology itself, and the stressors that some feel as a result. By more closely examining differences in mobile phone use (looking vs. talking) and the social context (dyad vs. group), this study reveals the nuanced ways that mobile phone use may lead to different responses and effects.

Another contribution of our study is the replication of field methods and field site. By replicating Humphreys’ (2005) study, we examined how behaviors associated with crosstalk and caller hegemony have changed over the last 15 years. Because we do not rely on self-report, our data have strong ecological validity and suggest some similarities as well as differences in what has been found in previous survey and experimental work (Gonzales & Wu, 2016; Halpern & Katz, 2017; Rainie & Zickuhr, 2015). Based on more specific categories of mobile phone behavior, we are able to identify which uses may have greater negative consequences. In particular, our study suggests mediated crosstalk may be the most likely behavior to cause feelings of ostracism as mobile phone users create new socially vulnerable singles, however the prominence of parallel mediated crosstalk in our study suggests that phones also become an important defense mechanism for singles.

Lastly, our study highlights the key difference between caller hegemony and notification hegemony. In Humphreys’ (2005) study, callers would often answer their mobile phones if they did not recognize the number, however, interview participants reported rarely answering their phones if they did not recognize the number, and this bore out in the observations as well. However, people reported and were observed frequently checking their notifications. Whereas originally, telephone callers and answers had differing levels of agency and power in telecommunication, today there are other actors who summon mobile phone users. Mobile handset manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple, mobile network operators such as Verizon and AT&T, and platforms such as Instagram and Google want and need consumers to be continually checking their phones for their businesses to continue to grow. The more people come to rely on and spend time on these devices, the better it is for these businesses. Notification hegemony points out the power imbalance between these providers and users. Given the high adoption rates of these services and low churn rates (FierceWireless, 2018), growth in business is not necessarily new customers, but increasing the mobile use of current customers.

The economic incentive of notifications for these companies suggests an important tension in the attribution of responsibility. As long as “the problem” of mobile phone use is placed on the individuals using them, it will never be fixed because there are multibillion-dollar industries pulling us into our phones. Sherry Turkle’s phrase “Stop Googling. Let’s talk.” and terms such as “phubbing” reinforce the idea that individuals are solely responsible for their phone use and does not recognize that people are being bombarded with notifications for news, weather, and social media on top of various other communication summons through their smartphones. Further, the rise of robocalls is well documented and generally considered annoying to both landline and mobile phone users (Blanco, 2019; Tu et al., 2016). Spam and email notifications (Brunton, 2013) further muddy the influx of communication notifications that people receive on their smartphones. Thus, notification hegemony can be felt throughout our communication channels, which have converged as well as expanded in our smartphones.

Conclusion

Our study provides nuanced behavioral categories for the ways that people manage competing demands for their attention in their everyday lives. Specifically, we extend the work of Humphreys (2005), Ling (2012), and Gonzales and Wu (2016) on the integration of mobile phones in society. Social norms are very complex and those regarding new communication technologies are constantly evolving with technological innovation. Our study suggests the complex yet tacit ways that people incorporate mobile technology into their lives has also changed with the technology.

Future research should continue to examine the ways the technology influences our face-to-face interactions and vice versa. Embedded social dynamics are very important as a contextual factor in mobile phone use and should be considered in future questions regarding ostracization and problematic mobile phone use. The contextual nature of mobile phone use will also continue to be an important area for future research. For example, questions of etiquette must consider both locational and social context in gauging appropriateness. It is likely few would consider it appropriate to use a phone in a church. If it were used to take a picture of a bride and groom, however, the social context could dramatically change people’s normative expectations of mobile phone use. Like subtleties in various assessments, these kinds of contextual factors could be examined in a factorial vignette survey method (Martin, 2012).

Our study also has limitations. We cannot observe motivations or interpretations, but can only observe behaviors. It may be that people have become so adept at responding to others’ mobile phone use that their emotional responses do not behaviorally manifest to be observable. It may be that people become very upset or angry at others’ use. Our intercept interviews were intended to supplement our observational data, however, because we did not interview those people we observed, we do not know how people felt about the specific mobile phone use we observed. Additionally, in replicating Humphreys’ methods, our interviews were conducted in parallel with our field observations. It would be interesting to use the field observations to develop an interview study to specifically examine interpretations and understandings of parallel and collective mediated crosstalk, as well as notification hegemony. It is also possible the mediated crosstalk we observed may be unique to Philadelphia or northeast American cities. We did aim to reduce such concerns by conducting preliminary fieldwork in a more suburban/rural setting; however, the findings may still be uniquely American.

Lastly, we want to suggest that although mediated crosstalk is likely lamented about in the public discourse, we actually found little evidence of negative behavioral effects. Cognitive and emotional effects, however, likely occur due to social neglect in mediated crosstalk. Notification hegemony provides an important explanation for why people may be so pulled into their phones. With a steady stream of “updates,” buzzing, and notifying red flags on various apps, mobile phone users are regularly but intermittently summoned to their phone. And although we take great solace that adult children report always answering mobile summons from their parents, the information asymmetry of mobile phone summoning and notifications leads to competing demands that contemporary mobile phone using adults must continually manage. Our study suggests people can be quite nuanced in managing and integrating mobile phone use into their interactions in public spaces. Perhaps “Google that for me and keep talking” better captures this integration.