{"title":"Datafied mobile markets: Measuring control over apps, data accesses, and third-party services","authors":"Sofie Flensburg, S. S. Lai","doi":"10.1177/20501579211039066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211039066","url":null,"abstract":"The increasing use of mobile applications (apps) has turned data harvesting, mining, and distribution into commercial as well as functional backbones of mobile communication. Acknowledging that contemporary markets for mobile communication are increasingly datafied, this article maps and discusses how infrastructures for mobile datafication are controlled. It combines perspectives from critical data studies, political economy of communication, and app studies in an empirical analysis of the 500 most downloaded apps in the Google Play store (November 2020). Focusing on control over and ownership in the three interdependent markets for apps, data accesses, and third-party services, the analysis documents, confirms, and explains established power structures and sheds light on the mobile datafication processes that frame the use of apps and commodification of users. As such, it provides an empirical baseline for future monitoring, and ultimately regulation, of mobile app ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"136 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45512558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disciplining the Akratic user: Constructing digital (un) wellness","authors":"C. J. Valasek","doi":"10.1177/20501579211038796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211038796","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary discourse around digital well-being tends to focus on self-control when it comes to “addicting” social media apps and digital devices. By acting on behalf of users, designers and engineers promote various self-regulating products and services in order for users to “fix” the distractible brains of typical users. This paper explores the role of the history of psychology on user-experience thinking and engineering and provides a critical genealogy of digital well-being discourse and persuasive technology. In particular, I expand on the role of dual-process models in human–computer interaction and health behavior change from the 1980s to today. By exploring the social construction of the distracted, impulsive, “primitive” animal brain (system 1), I find that it is this part of the mind that the engineer wishes to “treat,” via app design. In order to tame this “primitive” brain, researchers and engineers have turned to behavioral science, hoping to better structure user options and encourage users to manage their own time and normalize screen habits. I argue that normality discourses like this are founded upon ideas of time management and delay of gratification, whereas abnormality is tied to ideas of immediate gratification and time wasting. This dichotomy is not simply to enforce social norms around time wasting, but reinforces social and econoimc inequities. Therefore, unlike some other approaches to digital well-being, I urge future scholarship on the subject to examine the taken-for-granted social-cultural context, which will lead not only to a more politically nuanced understanding of the subject but may also lead to further discussions over how digital well-being could be conceived otherwise.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"235 - 250"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42588427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Jeremy W. Morris and Sarah Murray (Eds), Appified: Culture in the age of apps","authors":"J. Hou","doi":"10.1177/20501579211024893b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211024893b","url":null,"abstract":"gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/redmi-gaming-phone-launch-april-end-xiaomi-call-of-dutymobile-partnership-lu-weibing-2412567 Livingstone, S. (2020). Digital by default: The new normal of family life under COVID-19. Parenting for a Digital Future. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2020/05/13/ digital-by-default/ Navani, R. (2021). Why India’s gaming industry is on the rise. World Economic Forum. https:// www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/why-india-s-gaming-industry-is-on-the-rise/ Pandya, B. (2019). Indian gaming sector turning into a mobile-first world. Entrepreneur. https:// www.entrepreneur.com/article/333277 Singh, S. (2021). Mobile gaming market in India to touch $3 billion by 2023. BusinessLine. https:// www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/mobile-gaming-market-in-india-to-touch-3-billion-by-2023/article34090995.ece UNICEF Innocenti. (2020). Children online during the COVID-19 pandemic. UNICEF-IRC. https://www.unicef-irc.org/events/children-online-during-the-covid-19-pandemic.html","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"9 1","pages":"608 - 609"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49664188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Aditya Deshbandhu, Gaming Culture(s) in India: Digital Play in Everyday Life","authors":"Devina Sarwatay","doi":"10.1177/20501579211024893a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211024893a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"9 1","pages":"606 - 608"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44848853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Reviews: Germaine Halegoua, The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of Place","authors":"A. Hutcheon, J. Hardley","doi":"10.1177/20501579211024893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211024893","url":null,"abstract":"In The Digital City, Germaine Halegoua offers a broad and refreshing examination of the state of the smart city and its (potential) inhabitants. The book draws on information emerging from some key smart city sites across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the U.S., including “smart-from-the-start” cities such as Masdar City and the Songdo IBD, and extensive fieldwork, especially near ground zero of the Google Fiber installation in Kansas City. Halegoua makes a strong case for reconsidering the notion of the smart city as being more than the many capacities of ubiquitous computing in the urban context. Central to her argument is the observation that place is an always shifting social construct, and that the way we use the most intimate of our devices—the smartphone—is grounded in our social desires. Taking stock of mobile media theorists and space and place scholars, at the heart of this book, Halegoua aims to illustrate and analyze the ways “many different actors are actually using digital technologies and practices to re-embed themselves within urban space to create a sense of place” (p. 3)—much of which is done by, with and through mobile technologies. The book begins with a detailed overview of the state-of-the-art in smart cities, and how the Internet of Things has been implicated in new visions of urban space. It is here that some prominent smart cities, such as Masdar City, are exposed for the ghost towns they are, built upon the asocial logic of business rather than the actual needs of potential inhabitants. The second chapter is the book at its most powerful, centering around Halegoua’s engagement on the ground with the Google Fiber rollout in Kansas City. Here Halegoua points out that the designers of the project conceived of broadband as a good in and of itself, rather than being oriented, or at least sensitive to, the needs of people, leading to predictable class-based gaps in adoption. In this chapter, further compelling research is presented on the integration of spatial and social dimensions into the grassroots smart city framework that Halegoua shapes with her ethnographic experience. The main chapters of the book are rounded out by a final chapter that makes connections between creativity and place, and how digital media and urban computing are creating new opportunities in this space. Halegoua’s critical step, and the key contribution of the book, is the building the idea of “re-placeing”: the “subjective, habitual practice of assessing and combining physical, 1024893 MMC0010.1177/20501579211024893Mobile Media & CommunicationBook Reviews book-review2021","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"9 1","pages":"605 - 606"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20501579211024893","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41740070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The (other) two percent also matter: The construction of mobile phone refusers","authors":"H. Rosenberg, Kalia Vogelman-Natan","doi":"10.1177/20501579211033885","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211033885","url":null,"abstract":"Technological resistance practices hold significant insights regarding the media’s role as much as its adoption and usage practices. However, studies examining media non-use have generally overlooked mobile phone resisters—individuals voluntarily deciding not to own mobile phones. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with mobile phone refusers, this study presents two refuser types differing in refusal dynamics. The first are ideologists, whose rejection stems from a formulated, critical worldview towards the mobile phone, in particular, and communication technologies, in general. The second are realizers, whose “post-factum resistance” resulted from a forced but positive experience of a temporary break in use (e.g., when their device was broken or stolen), motivating them to disconnect in an attempt to preserve the new, liberated space they experienced. Additional findings reveal the non-ownership practices adopted by the mobile phone refusers; the novel psychological and sociological motives underlying mobile phone refusal concerning the home space and digital well-being; refuser resistance discourse, which focuses solely on the medium’s nature and not its content; and how refusers negotiate the social status and stigma that accompanies their mobile phone refusal. Our study illustrates how mobile phone refusal stands apart from other media resistance, providing a deeper perspective on the price of connectivity, and thus underscoring the importance of studying these refusers. The uniqueness of mobile phone refusal is further expressed in its complexity, extremity, perceived authenticity, and visibility.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"216 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20501579211033885","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45558904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Studying problems, not problematic usage: Do mobile checking habits increase procrastination and decrease well-being?","authors":"Adrian Meier","doi":"10.1177/20501579211029326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211029326","url":null,"abstract":"Most prior research on the effects of mobile and social media on well-being has worked from either the “technology addiction” or “screen time” approach. Yet these frameworks struggle with considerable conceptual and methodological limitations. The present study discusses and tests an established but understudied alternative, the technology habit approach. Instead of conflating mobile usage with problems (i.e., addictive/problematic usage) or ignoring users’ psychological engagement with mobiles (i.e., screen time), this approach investigates how person-level (habit strength) and day-level aspects of mobile habits (perceived interruptions and the urge to check) contribute to a key problem outcome, procrastination, as well as affective well-being and meaningfulness. In a five-day diary study with N = 532 student smartphone users providing N = 2,331 diary entries, mobile checking habit strength, perceived interruptions, and the urge to check together explained small to moderate amounts of procrastination. Procrastination, in turn, was linked to lower affective well-being and meaningfulness. Yet mobile habits showed only very small or no direct associations with affective well-being and meaningfulness. By separating habitual mobile connectivity from problem outcomes and well-being measures, this research demonstrates a promising alternative to the study of digital well-being.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"272 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48010104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
T. Radtke, Theresa Apel, Konstantin Schenkel, J. Keller, Eike von Lindern
{"title":"Digital detox: An effective solution in the smartphone era? A systematic literature review","authors":"T. Radtke, Theresa Apel, Konstantin Schenkel, J. Keller, Eike von Lindern","doi":"10.1177/20501579211028647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211028647","url":null,"abstract":"Smartphone use, e.g., on social network sites or instant messaging, can impair well-being and is related to clinical phenomena, like depression. Digital detox interventions have been suggested as a solution to reduce negative impacts from smartphone use on outcomes like well-being or social relationships. Digital detox is defined as timeouts from using electronic devices (e.g., smartphones), either completely or for specific subsets of smartphone use. However, until now, it has been unclear whether digital detox interventions are effective at promoting a healthy way of life in the digital era. This systematic literature review aimed to answer the question of whether digital detox interventions are effective at improving outcomes like health and well-being, social relationships, self-control or performance. Systematic searches of seven databases were carried out according to PRISMA guidelines, and intervention studies were extracted that examined timeouts from smartphone use and/or smartphone-related use of social network sites and instant messaging. The review yielded k = 21 extracted studies (total N = 3,625 participants). The studies included interventions in the field, from which 12 were identified as randomized controlled trials. The results showed that the effects from digital detox interventions varied across studies on health and well-being, social relationships, self-control, or performance. For example, some studies found positive intervention effects, whereas others found no effect or even negative consequences for well-being. Reasons for these mixed findings are discussed. Research is needed to examine mechanisms of change to derive implications for the development of successful digital detox interventions.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"190 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20501579211028647","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44835377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"WhatsApp group as a shared resource for coping with political violence: The case of mothers living in an ongoing conflict area","authors":"Yuval Roitman, Daphna Yeshua-Katz","doi":"10.1177/20501579211021455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211021455","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, mobile media applications have become a significant resource for crisis communication and communal coping during natural disasters and wars. Drawing on communal coping and media affordance research, we examined the roles that a WhatsApp group plays for mothers living in an ongoing conflict area. We examined, through in-depth interviews, a local WhatsApp group operating in a community adjacent to the Israel–Gaza border. Findings revealed the unique emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies people use when facing ongoing threats. Four affordances—immediacy, reachability, mobility, and multimediality—contributed to WhatsApp’s role as a shared and ubiquitous coping resource. This study demonstrates the ways in which instant messaging communication affordances contribute to communal coping strategies in ongoing conflict areas.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"3 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/20501579211021455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47321430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
F. Schneider, S. Lutz, Annabell Halfmann, Adrian Meier, L. Reinecke
{"title":"How and when do mobile media demands impact well-being? Explicating the Integrative Model of Mobile Media Use and Need Experiences (IM3UNE)","authors":"F. Schneider, S. Lutz, Annabell Halfmann, Adrian Meier, L. Reinecke","doi":"10.1177/20501579211054928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579211054928","url":null,"abstract":"Using mobile media can be both detrimental and beneficial for well-being. Thus, explaining how and when they elicit such effects is of crucial importance. To explicate boundary conditions and processes for digital well-being, this article introduces the Integrative Model of Mobile Media Use and Need Experiences (IM³UNE). Instead of assuming mobile media to be pathogenic, the IM³UNE offers a salutogenic perspective—it focuses on how we can stay healthy when using mobile media ubiquitously in daily life. More specifically, the model assumes that both the satisfaction and the frustration of basic psychological needs are key underlying mechanisms linking demanding mobile media use to well-being. However, the impact of these mechanisms is contingent on how users perceive, appraise, act on, and make sense of mobile media demands according to their global orientation to life (i.e., their sense of coherence, SOC). Integrating prior work, we theoretically link mindfulness, self-control, and meaningfulness to SOC's central facets, arguing that they represent crucial personal resources required to cope with mobile media demands. Thus, the offers an integrative framework, guiding further research towards a more nuanced study of mobile media’s effect on well-being.","PeriodicalId":46650,"journal":{"name":"Mobile Media & Communication","volume":"10 1","pages":"251 - 271"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2021-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43978956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}