Technologies, specifically mobile phones, are designed to make people’s lives easier and more convenient. Nowadays, cell phone usage provides people with greater capabilities in using their phone for things other than phone calls. Sociology sees mobile phones as an umbrella term for communication and social interaction. Due to the multimodality of mobile phone use, the data in this paper will analyze cellphone usage from two perspectives: how social norms of interaction in public spaces are governed by institutional and cultural tendencies; and how cellphones reflect the opportunities for avoidance and social insulation, focusing on uncomfortable and awkward situations.
Data
Screen Shot 1:
Screen shot 2:
The screenshots above (1 & 2) serve to bring into focus that there is an awareness of pretending to text. However, the focus of the paper will be to discuss the findings within the YouTube video, “My Tram Experience,” uploaded by RunExpress. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd8iYLvlQaM). The video serves two purposes. Firstly, it tells us something about individuals whom experience discomfort during face-to-face interactions. Face-to-face interaction defined as a physical copresence in social interaction (Goffman 1967 & 1983, cited in Rettie 2009: 423). Secondly, it draws attention to this idea that pretending to text in awkward situations has become a ritualized form of mediated communication. An awkward situation here in this context being defined as, “lacking social grace and assurance, causing embarrassment, not easy to handle or deal with” (Merriam-Webster).
When watching the video bear in mind that cell phones control and empower individuals to decide on their own about the modalities of segregation of permeability between different institutional settings, social systems, individual relationships and individual roles (Geser 2004: 35). For purposes of the paper, listen to the video without audio. The aim here is not to focus on the semantics of the argument but the gestrues and interactions around the spatial framework of the tram. Background information gathered from this video tell us that the shouting came from a racist British woman on the London tram complaining about ethnic minorities in her country.
Analysis of Data
The blonde woman first appears at 0:49 seconds shown in screen shot 3:
The man first appears at 1:18 seconds shown in screen shot 4:
According to Geser (2004: 4) using a cell phone for these people is
seen as a major aspect of space, as the cell phones here may afford these
people different things; i.e., help these two individuals deal with being in a
crowded or unsecure space. Or by focusing on their cell phone, they mentally
leave the place through “virtual emigration” (Geser 2004: 4). However, the
woman initially engages with the argument shown by her behavior of turning her
head back and forth between the two arguing women (seen at 0:50 seconds). It is
not until 1:15 seconds that she looks at her phone and engages with it in a way
to virtually emigrate herself away from the uncomfortable unwanted social
situation. Virtual emigration can be described as one using their cell phone to
privilege them to mentally leave a current situation or to buffer a situation
(Geser 2004: 4).
Geser argues that by using or pretending to use one’s phone, either
talking or texting, one can send signals to others to be left alone (2004).
Thus, this woman is using her phone to act as a social barrier or insulator
from the unwanted situation, by requesting “civil inattention.” Goffman’s term
“civil inattention,” is said to have an increase to try to ignore and give privacy
to people using their cell phones (Geser 2004: 9). A glimpse of the man in the
blue shirt, supports that he is requesting “civil inattention” at time 1:59
seconds and goes till about 2:02 seconds (Screen shot 5 & 6). It is
interesting at this point that his focus remains on his mobile phone and not
the argument. As the argument at this time has really escalated and somehow
that does not interrupt the dynamical mediated social communication occurring at
this time. His phone is affording him to avoid this unwanted interaction.
Screen shot 5:
Screen shot 6:
When reaching time 1:54 seconds (screen shot 7), it jumps back to
the blonde woman and similarly together they are requesting “civil
inattention.”
Screen shot 7:
The blonde woman continues to look at her phone till 1:55 seconds
(screen shot 8) and throughout this time she is using the phone as a sort of
“prop;” something used in creating or enhancing a desired effect
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The phone in this sense serves as a security
blanket.
Screen shot 8:
Whatever the circumstances might be, this is a way for them to
exploit or make sense of the situation or act as a buffer, these people do not
want to get involved and are trying to avoid taking a role in that specific
communication. The phone affords individuals to not only try and make
themselves invisible but they also attempt to use the phone as a way to
legitimize or justify themselves for being in that social situation.
The phone, as a consequence within this situation, risks being
controversial (and therefore have to be justified and legitimated) among the
individuals using them (Geser 2004: 35). With the phones “empowering”
capabilities, people face more social pressures to legitimize or justify what
they are doing in the tram (Geser 2004: 15).
Theoretical Analysis
Whether an interaction is face-to-face there are certain
expectations or norms that govern that social situation. Social places such as
the tram, bus, or shopping mall all have some form of mediated communication.
While our findings from the tram video clearly demonstrate that the use of
mobile phones “afford” these people to dissembed themselves from the current
real time interaction; it allows them to do sorts of behaviors (pretending to
text) that they normally are not able to do. The man and the woman may be
giving gestures and messages like to be left alone by pretending to have their
own conversation on their phone. For the sake of the paper that is what we will
assume they are doing: compared to writing/responding to emails, checking their
Facebook status, or playing a game.
Knottnerus (2011) extends on Emile Durkheims idea of how things or
what things become important to people and within social groups. Knottnerus
elaborated on the importance of rituals in the wider society by conceptualizing
rituals as developing norms and rules within social practices. The blog/forum
and video afford these interactions to communicate about less confrontational
aspects but with more pervasive practices of micro-negotiations.
Rituals can play many different roles in our lives and they are developed
using phones; whether they are landlines or mobile phones. Cell phone users are
developing the norms and patterns of use of these devices within their group,
which are embedded within society (Knottnerus 2011: 17). It is important that
we look at the phone as a ritual, as it is clearly evident through the use of
them within the video that they help shape the meaning in that event. As it is
through this repetitive use of people using cell phones in public that society
has constructed normalness for their use and therefore these people, in the
eyes of their peers, are practicing normal patterns of behavior.
What would happen to the situation if the man and woman interacting
with their phone were holding a phone conversation compared to their assumed
messaging (SMS)? It would create a situation of disruption and “normlessness
and insecurity” and there is no formal protocol to handle such a situation
(Geser 2004: 22). There are consequences if a phone call is taken during an
ongoing interaction like this, Gergen notes that a mobile phone conversation “typically
establishes an “inside space” (“we who are conversing”) vs. an “outside space”
constituted by those within earshot but prevented from participating” (2002:
238).
This anticipates and begs the question, whether taking a phone call
during this heated argument between the two women would be just as effective in
acting as a buffer in that situation?
“The impact of cell phone use on the
environment is very much reduced when text-based messages (SMS) instead of
audio call are used. A major advantage of SMS lies in the fact that the message
can be sent and received in a highly unobtrusive way, even when the bystanders
are quite close” (Geser 2004: 38).
Thus, texting compared to conversing on the phone would be less
intrusive and less distracting in situations like these (Rettie 2009: 433).
However, it is still important to remember that a text messages is used when
people are trying to escape some sort of embarrassment or avoid interacting in
a face-to-face interaction (Plant 2000). The man and the woman obviously
support this effort, while trying to avoid this unwanted face-to-face
interaction.
Conclusion
In the interaction the two people using
their phones, use them as a sort of prop that affords them the flexibility to
avoid being involved in that social space. Interestingly, what about the person
whom filmed the interaction on their phone (so we will assume)? This brings us
to consider surveillance. These “digital interactions” are more and more
frequently being saved. People normally do not think of phones as a form of
surveillance, therefore it is effective when using the video camera capability
in situations like these.
In this scenario, the phone would be a more
effective way of engaging in this sort of interaction. Due to the woman being
taken to court after the video was posted. The use of the phone in this case
made more of an impact on helping the situation than the woman who verbalized,
“have some respect there are children on the train.”
One last thing to consider is, the phone
itself is allowing for impression management because the person filming has the
control of filtering this particular social situation. The woman filming can
choose which people to focus on and what to omit from the video, this tells us
something about how this woman filming is interpreting the issue at hand. Throughout
the film there seems to be focus taken away from the interaction between the
two arguing women. At this time the woman filming makes it apparent that there
are other people. She seems to film the people on their phones quite often. Why
is this?
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