Medial Ubiquity as Part of Adolescents’ Everyday Life: ICT´s Influence on Young Mobile Internet Users

• In Event: Adolescent and Youth Social Media Behaviors

Abstract

Internet access using mobile devices is no longer restricted to a technical avant-garde but rather a wide spread phenomenon among adolescents. The diffusion of mobile internet into teenagers’ everyday life leads to far-reaching consequences concerning personality development and socialization. To get a clearer picture of these changes the current study focuses on young mobile internet users using data from a survey of 2.200 German adolescents. The analysis shows that a considerable share of adolescents accessing the internet on the go are prototypical produsers that use the social web in an active way. Especially girls are able to act out their communicative needs with mobile use of the internet. Mobile internet enhances the scope for action resulting in an intensification of both self-enabling as well as risky online user behavior. Thus we state, that ubiquitization leads to more mediated interaction mainly via social media and fosters self-socialization at the same time.

Authors

• Rebecca Renatus, Technische Universitt Dresden

• Susan Schenk, TU Dresden

• Lutz M. Hagen, TU Dresden