Premium
The advanced use of mobile phones in five E uropean countries
Author(s) -
Fortunati Leopoldina,
Taipale Sakari
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the british journal of sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.826
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1468-4446
pISSN - 0007-1315
DOI - 10.1111/1468-4446.12075
Subject(s) - mobile phone , business , phone , meaning (existential) , computer science , internet privacy , telecommunications , world wide web , psychology , philosophy , linguistics , psychotherapist
The paper explores the advanced users of mobile phones in I taly, F rance, G ermany, S pain and the UK ( EU 5 countries) and aims to clarify the social meaning of advanced use. The mobile phone is seen as a strategic tool of social labour, whose capabilities are exploited to a different extent in the five studied countries. The analysis is based on a cross‐national survey data collected in 2009 ( N = 7,255). First, the results show that there are substantial differences in the advanced use of mobile phone and its predictors in E urope. Generally, only about one third of the studied mobile features are exploited. B ritish and F rench people are the most advanced users, followed by G erman, S panish and I talians. While I talians have stuck to early developed mobile phone features, B ritons especially have continued to adopt the newer properties of the mobile phone. Second, the article shows that owing to the extensive under‐utilization of its features, the mobile phone as a tool of social labour is efficiently exploited by only a small number of people. They, however, constitute technological vanguards that make use of the diverse features in different countries. This limited use of advanced features results in the new patterns of social stratification.