Poster #241 - The Business and Intimacy of Friendships and Romantic Relationships: Cell Phone Communications in Adolescence

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Relationships with friends and romantic partners provide substantial benefits to adolescents, but also require a good deal of maintenance and emotional investment. Of the many decisions adolescents make regarding communications with peers, a growing number relate to the use of cell phones. Among American adolescents aged 14-17, 88% report that they have cell phones and use them as the primary way to communicate with peers (Lenhart, 2015; Tulane, Vaterlaus, & Beckert, 2015). In this study, we sought to understand: (a) the content of adolescents’ cell phone communications with friends and romantic relationships and for calls versus texts, and (b) ways adolescents’ communication goals, instrumental and intimate, as well as the qualities of their relationships, shape how and why they use their cell phones with friends and romantic partners.
Participants were 41 high school students, ages 14 to 18, in ninth through twelfth grades. Adolescents completed semi-structured qualitative interviews focused on the use of cell phones for communicating with friends and romantic partners. We accessed adolescents’ cell phone text and call histories over the previous 24 hours, as well as details concerning the most recent calls received and made and the most recent texts received and sent.
Results indicated that adolescents engaged in instrumental communications with friends and romantic partners almost exclusively through texts. Participants texted their friends when they were bored, and the content of communications was often sufficiently light that they were able to carry on multiple text conversations at once. In contrast, adolescents often preferred to use calls to engage in intimate-content communications with friends that required extensive discussion or provision of emotional support. For example, Allison (European American girl, age 16) declared, “Um, if it’s like a big deal. And I know I have a lot to say, Im’ma call. And then, if it’s just something mono, like something simple…I’ll just text”. Adolescents engaged in both instrumental and intimate communications with romantic partners; however, their decisions regarding medium of communication depended on the nature of the romantic relationship in addition to the content of the communication. Adolescents preferred to use texts to engage in superficial communications with potential romantic partners or when relationships were not well developed as a way to get to know each other better or to keep emotion at bay. In contrast, established relationships involving greater emotional connection were associated with both texting and calling as mediums of communication. “I call him in the morning, well, and at night he calls me when he gets off of work and we text a lot in the day” (Brianna, Multiethnic girl, age 17).
Findings from this study extend current understanding regarding the nature and content of friendships and romantic relationships and the manner in which cell phone communications provide source medium for maintaining such relationships. While previous studies have solely focused on the choice of communication medium, the current study focused on ways in which distinct types of relationships involve cell phone communication content that is handled through text versus call functions of cell phones.

Authors

• Marta Benito-Gomez, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Bethany L. Blair, Florida State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anne C. Fletcher, UNC Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author