About Us
The Cellular Connections Project are building upon a pilot project that investigated the role of cell phone trouble and repair among teens in Washington, DC (2013-2014 — funded by the Smithsonian). Currently funded by the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian, we seek to further evaluate the effects of cellular technology on DC teens and their educational, familial, and cultural environments.
By ethnographically describing cell phone breakdowns in five contexts (infrastructure, hardware, software, conversation, and etiquette) we seek to analyze these troubles among teens, some of the heaviest users of these devices, and some of the most vulnerable to their failure. The results will provide a detailed account of the actual uses of these communicative technologies, revealing background assumptions about relations between materiality and semiosis.
In the process of carrying out this research, we develop methods for analyzing mediation as an interaction between the material and the semiotic; our employment of video data, audio recording, and observations in classrooms, lunchrooms, and home environments will be significant in this respect, revealing not just the words participants use, but also the physical objects to which they are attending in the course of their communicative practices.
Finally, on the level of broader impacts, we anticipate that our results will contribute to ongoing debates about teen dependence on these devices role of technology in identity production, and the potential policy implications of technologies integration into households and learning environments.
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What We Do
The Cellular Connections Project employs mixed-methods ethnographic approaches to studying the material and social aspects of cell phones. In order to do so the team:
(1) performs classroom observation where we study how students interact—or don’t interact—with cell phones during class. In this capacity we’ve moved towards creating a typology for forms of classroom distraction that we hope to soon develop into a ‘best practices’ recommendation for classroom cell phone policy. In classrooms, we further see how students utilize their phones as tools for navigating both class content as an education aid and social networks internal and external to the classroom. We also observe lunchrooms at DC area high schools to see how cell phones establish a multispatial network of communication.
(2) analyzes the relationship between digital technology, affordability, and social inequality in the DC area. Inequality of various forms in DC is apparent. Recently, we have been interested in analyzing how cell phones change the constitution of social inequality. One one hand, cell phones bridge gaps between income disparity and provide similar accessibilities, however the cell phone also presents fresh platforms and outlets for new types of inequality.
(3) conducts interviews with a range of participants. We have interviewed dozens of teachers, students, and administrators to understand different discourses about cell phone use in school settings. We have also talked with professionals from service providers, repair technicians, grid operators, and government employees.
(4) discuss, write, and think. A lot of what we do revolves around our team coming together to talk, think, and write about cell phones. The group atmosphere of highly involved and interested individuals from diverse backgrounds produces thrilling and provoking ideas. We organize talks and panels for workshops and conferences in order to share, collaborate, and discuss with our peers and colleagues. We also host reading groups where we discuss recent literature from the fields of anthropology and communication studies.