Abstract
The chapter introduces the theoretical and methodological framework of the book and of the related research on the relationship between young people and smartphone practices. First, we outline some of the most important works pertaining to the social implications of the smartphone. We underline how research in the socio-anthropological field has been able to bring light to important issues, while it simultaneously left several gaps in research to be addressed. Then, the chapter presents key theoretical references which inform the present research, which include notions from cultural and media studies, and science and technology studies (STS). Moreover, the chapter describes in detail the design of the empirical research, based on a qualitative approach including semi-structured interviews and one focus group with smartphone users. Finally, we outline the structure of the book to help readers identify the six main topics addressed in the following chapters: smartphones’ role as material technology and their use in interpersonal relationships, photographic practices, music listening, consumption practices, and young people’s thoughts on the fears related to smartphone ‘addiction’.
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Notes
- 1.
By considering ‘youth’ a sociological category rather than a biological one (Frith 2005), it is uncertain to define exactly what the label ‘young people’ means because this meaning is related to cultural and social differences across countries. In the book we use the generic definition of ‘young people’ to identify our interviewees, who in terms of age fall approximately under the Eurostat’s definition that includes people from 16 to 29 years.
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Scarcelli, C.M., Drusian, M., Magaudda, P. (2022). Introduction: Young People, the Smartphone, and Our Deeply Mediatised World. In: Young People and the Smartphone . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06311-4_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06311-4_1
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