Abstract
Smartphones have evolved at a phenomenal rate over the past 15 years. They are now portable personal computers, infiltrating every corner of our daily lives through countless applications (apps). There is thus a need for smartphone-mediated communication (SMC) research to help us understand why users might dismiss the physical world and gravitate towards smartphone interaction instead.
It is with this premise that Francisco Yus has written the timely monograph Smartphone Communication: Interactions in the App Ecosystem, which comprises 13 chapters organized into four parts. The book starts with an introduction to the holistic framework of cyber-pragmatics and moves on to analyze three typical types of SMC interaction. The work shines not only in its insightful outlining of existing theoretical frameworks through a cognitive approach, but also in the diverse methods and themes addressed in its analysis of verbal discourse, image/picture interaction, and the virtual–physical overlay, among other topics.
Driven by a variety of SMC goals, apps function as an “integrated structure” (p. 1) within which each individual app is defined in relation to the others. Yus thus labels “app ecosystem” (p. 1–2) to indicate the importance of apps and users’ subjectivity in interpreting SMC, perspectives that help form the theoretical framework for the book. The former reframes the context into contextual constraints by pointing out the interface-related and user-related qualities in using apps that may alter SMC practice and comprehension. The latter is termed propositional effects, that is, feelings and emotions caused by propositional content. Correspondingly, Yus introduces the new label of non-intended non-propositional effects into the framework with foci on users’ implied affective attitudes (intended feelings, emotions, etc.) and the generation of unintended non-propositional effects. These two crucial axial terms constitute the entire cognitive research framework, offering a deeper psychological explanation for SMC.
What also deserves our attention is the book's use of a historical view that traces key notions of previous cyber-pragmatic studies to highlight the specificities of present SMC practices. For example, the author reviews older message services to explore the specificities of smartphone messaging in chapter 5 (p. 66–67), and then shows new attributes of smartphone digital narratives in chapter 7 (p. 120–124). More importantly, the author should be commended for his flexible selection of diverse methods under the umbrella of qualitative methodology. The book is illustrated with interpretive studies on real online interactions, such as chapter 9 (p. 173–192), where the live streaming platform Twitch was featured to obtain a thorough understanding of its media convergence of both video stream and text-based chat. Also striking is the proposed dichotomy of video interaction, in which the first-order refers to prototypical communication between user and audience, and the second-order lays its emphasis on interactions within the shared video. Other notable threads of research include selfie-based communication in chapter 8 (p. 143–172), and the physical–virtual interrelations on locative apps in chapter 11 (p. 211–230).
The book offers a valuable view by proposing an “ecosystem” (p. 1) in which smartphone apps, like a biological ecosystem, connect users to each other tightly, reflecting the spontaneity and indispensability of SMC. As such, the most valuable contribution of the book lies in its in-depth cognitive investigation, especially of motivation, emotion, and feeling in relation to SMC. SMC is clearly not just a social phenomenon, but also a psychological human need to survive in the app ecosystem. In this sense, the old definition of communication needs to be rewritten as a cognitive activity triggered by psychological needs of connection and bonding.