One of the primary sources I used was a questionnaire which I gave to a wide range of people and collected information and data from the results I was given.
Research Questionnaire – Mobile Technology
Section 1: Who are you?
1. How old are you?
10-14 [] 15-19 [] 20-24 [] 25- 30 [] 31+ []
2. What is your gender?
Male [] Female []
3. What is your current occupational status?
Student [] Unemployed [] Employed [] Claiming financial help [] Other []
Section 2: Your personal use of mobile technology
4. Do you own any of the following forms of mobile technology?
Ipod/Mp3 players [] Mobile phones [] Laptops [] Pagers []
Portable DVD players [] Other [] – Please state ___________________________________
5. If so, what forms do you use most regularly and why?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6. What is the highest amount you would be prepared to pay for a mobile appliance?
£30-£50 [] £60-£80 [] £90-£110 [] £120-£140 [] £150-£170 []
£180-£200 [] Other [] – Please state _______________________________________________
Section 3: The effects of mobile technology
If you are a parent, please answer the following questions
7. At which age do you think it would be acceptable for a child/young person to have access to mobile technology?
0-10 [] 11-14 [] 15-18 []
Please give reasons for this answer:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8. Do you think there are social effects and differences when mobile technology is used excessively?
Yes, because ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
No, because
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9. As a parent, do you think it is your responsibility to monitor your child’s mobile use?
Yes [] No[] Sometimes [] When needed [] Definitely [] All the time []
Never [] Other []
Section 4: The effects of mobile technology
If you are not a parent, and not dependent on any one, please answer the following questions
10. Do you feel dependent on mobile technology in any way?
Yes [] No []
- Why?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
11. If you use mobile technology on a daily basis through work or education, do you think it has a positive or negative effect on your social awareness?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
12. As you are not a parent, and not dependent on anyone, do you feel that mobile technology is easier to use/gain access to?
Yes [] No [] Sometimes [] Other [] – Please state ______________________________
Section 5: The effects of mobile technology
If you are under 18 and dependent on your parent/guardian, please answer the following questions
13. At which age do you think it would be acceptable to have access to mobile technology?
0-10 [] 11-14 [] 15-18 []
Please give reasons for this answer:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
14. When you see the latest smart phone advertised on television or online, what do you do?
Save up for one []
Do nothing []
You don’t need a new phone, your old one works fine []
Don’t bother, you won’t be allowed one anyway []
Ask your parent/guardian to get you one []
Do a lot of jobs and chores in payment for one []
Ask for one as a birthday or Christmas present []
Other [] - Please state ____________________________________
15. Do you sometimes feel that you want a phone because a lot of friends or family have a mobile appliance?
Yes [] No []
- Why?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
16. Do you think that by having mobile appliances you spend more time doing virtual activities, rather than real life activities?
(For example, you may spend more time speaking to a friend over the phone than go round to their house to have a chat )
Yes []
No []
Sometimes []
I don’t know []
Other [] Please state - __________________________________________
Section 6 : General queries
17. Do you think that our world has become dependent on mobile technology over the years?
Yes [] No [] In some ways [] Not at all []
Other [] Please state - _________________________________________________
18. Where do you think mobile technology will take us next?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
19. If you had to choose a brand in terms of mobile appliance companies, which would you choose and why?
Dell [] ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Apple []
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Microsoft []
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Blackberry []
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sony Ericsson []
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Other []
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
20. Which do you think is the most effective mobile appliance?
Mobile phone []
Laptop []
Pager []
Side Kick []
MP3/iPods []
Other [] Please state _________________________________________________
One on one interview
Name: Karen Hadfield
Age: 43
Occupation: Primary school teacher and Art and Design Co-ordinator
1. Do you own any form of mobile technology?
- Yes I have quite a few actually. Within my house hold there are 5 of us and I would say all together that makes a lot of mobile technology. My sons, aged 12 and 7 both have iPods and share a laptop between them. My daughter is 17 and has a Blackberry, an iPod and an AppleMac laptop which my husband and I gave to her to support her with college work. My husband and I both have our own ‘AppleMacBook’Pro ‘ because they are needed for work. My husband and I also own mobile phones, not fancy, state of the art like my daughters, but they are effective never the less.
2. Do you have constant control over the use of mobile technology within your home?
- Ermm, with the boys I most definitely monitor there everyday use of any type of activity which isn’t fundamentally constructive. In my home work comes before play, therefore there are tight restrictions and limitations surrounding when they are able to use their gadgets. Jordan, 12, most probably has more control over his mobile appliance use than Sam, 7, simply because as he is getting older, I am trying to provide him with more responsibility in the hope that one day he will be able to regulate his of mobile appliance use. In our day and age I think it is so easy to succumb to the laid back, lazy ways of society. There’s a machine that does a job a human could do simply because of speed and the way at which our world in developing so quickly means that there is such a high demand on everything. When I was a child, the world didn’t move any where near as fast as it does today and I honestly put that down to the way in which we have found technology a substitute for human work. The fact that this allows us to move faster as a society means the demand for ‘things’ increases and I think in a lot of ways we lose sight of the better things in life which technology can not contribute to. I may not be able to control the
world’s use of mobile technology, but I can start at home.
3. At what age do you think it is acceptable to give a child/young person access to mobile technology?
- Well, it depends on a lot of factors one of the first being the circumstances in which the mobile technology is given. If a child is aged 9 and they travel to and from school without a parent/guardian I think it may be acceptable to issue the child with a mobile phone, perhaps in case of emergency. However, the use of that phone would be limited to the journey to and from school, as its not necessary for it to be used at any other time. In general I believe that young children should not depend on technology, but instead use it as a tool in which can support their natural personal skills. Using laptops and MP3 players carry the same principal. I’m not suggesting that it is acceptable for young children to have open access to these appliances, however young people are our future and I believe that supporting them and teaching them the benefits and disadvantages at an early age could potentially prove helpful during the adolescent years. When my daughter was 11, I allowed her to have a mobile phone which I monitored closely yet gave her the opportunity to prove her responsibility and maturity in the way she conducted her own use of the mobile phone. Once I felt confident that she was aware of the negative effects mobile technology could have, and I could clearly see her using her initiative with the phone ( eg: when it is and isn’t appropriate to be on the phone), I felt I no longer needed to have control over her personal mobile use. So in conclusion I feel that it is down to the circumstances as well as the maturity and responsibility of the child/young person in question.
4. Growing up, where you ever able to have a mobile phone at a young age?
- Certainly not! I was born in 1967 when mobile phones like we know it today weren’t even invented! It wasn’t until the early 1980’s that they started to become more available but even then, they were hideous in appearance, gigantic and bulbous in shape and size and literally performed the bare essentials i.e. make and relieve phone calls. Never the less, the mobile phones of the 1980’s were the best of the time and people were immediately dependent on them. Over the years, the demand and want for your mobile phones to do simply everything you could ever imagine it to do has become the reality. Years ago I never would have believed that a mobile phone would also be my camera, my games console even my favourite book and I think it is really amazing how far technology has moved just within my life span to date. When I was a teenager, I was looking after my younger siblings whilst my mum worked. I has to cook, clean, shop for the family and generally take care of my family whilst my parents worked, all as well as dealing with school work and my hormonal and emotionally changes. When I explain these things to my children and children of today, they can’t really understand that there have always been teenagers but it want recognized as that all those years ago. It just was not tolerated, so the cultural differences are clearly a result of how the times have changed and how they will continue to change is the most intriguing element of mobile technology.
5. Do you think that mobile technology has a social effect on young people as opposed to the elder generation?
- Definitely. I think the whole ‘teenage years’ ideology which has become an established journey through adolescence and puberty means that having a moody, hormonal, selfish, demanding version of the child you gave birth to and raised creates a negative view of teenagers. I love my children and I aim to give them the best even when they dislike my parental decisions, the decisions stands and that’s final. Blaming mobile technology for ‘teenage’ behaviour isn’t necessarily always fair, however I do think that as teenagers are at a crucial stage of personal development, dealing those issues can be embarrassing and uncomfortable for them. My daughter is nearly 18 now, and I can remember how she went from being the little girl that I had given birth to and raised, to being this incredibly sarcastic, lethargic, miserable, and temperamental person who I didn’t like very much to be honest but I always loved and supported her through those times. At that age, you think the world is against you and nobody understands how hard it is to be you and I think that spending time on the phone to friends and having your first encounters with the male species through texts and phone calls is innocent and doesn’t really cause a lot of issues. However, if this is not regulated, I can, and does become a problem. There were times when family members would ask my daughter if she was born with the phone stuck to her head! Other occasions when we would be at the dinner table and she would miss meals as she was having a MSN conversation with a friend. It creates a strange form of hostility because as a parent you feel shut out. Your little girl doesn’t want to do the same things any more and they spend hours talking nonsense instead of doing something constructive. Peer pressure contributes to this as well because if you are a teenager and all your friends have the latest iPod, PS3 or whatever it is, it means then that, that is what you should have. So in general I think it does have an effect if not monitored correctly, however in saying that, during the teenage years I suppose it is normal to shut yourself away from the world because ‘no one understands you’.
6. Where would you like to see mobile technology in 10 years from now?
- Oh, if I’m still alive and well at 52, I would love to see teleporting. That is one area of technology, which really excites me. The idea that I could move myself from one place to another in seconds rather that taking the bus, or having sit in traffic somewhere is just fantastic and if technology progressed to that level, I think it would be very fascinating to see what kind of effect that would have one the world.
Mobile Technology Focus Group
1. What other functions do our mobile phones offer other than basic phone calls and texts? And how important do you think it is for our mobile technology to have these functions?
- Internet – not very important but good for social networking, facebook, also good for business people as they can access important email and work information.
- Games, themes, free communication services eg:MSN, Blackberry Messenger and PingChat.
- A lot of phones over complicate things, too much fancy stuff means essentials are less effectives eg: signal lost
2. Do you think that recent mobile technology is more or less reliable than dated mobile technology? (eg: Nokia 3210 Vs iPhone 4)
- Newer phones over complicate things
- Less connection and signal lost easily
- Style over substance, a lot of phone focus specifically on USP’s , packaging and appearance rather than basic functions like making phone calls and texts quickly and efficiently
- Newer phones much harder to use
3. Do you think that having a mobile phone or laptop etc, has a knock on effect on your lifestyle? In what way?
- Can make you very antisocial - people are dependent on mobile phones
- Constantly using games, internet, messenger applications, texting, making phone calls – less time for literal interactions
- People panic when their battery dies
- More likely to be targeting in a mugging when you have an expensive phone, people feel safer with a less appealing phone.
4. Do you think that mobile technology has a knock on effect on your relationships with people? Negative or positive?
Negatives
- Can’t express yourself as well – expression not seen through texts
- Causes mistrust in relationships – lots of arguments can being over speculation of texts and what the tone being used is – not clear through texts
- Less emotion through online or virtual communication
- Sometimes people can misunderstand, mislead others through smiley faces, ‘x’ kisses at the end of texts etc
Positives
- Can begin relationships, communication minimal but established
- Reliable and constant – can text all day
- Quick, fast – can receive and send messages instantly
5. What is the most you have ever spent on mobile technology?
- Just the phone in the shop - £160, £250, £60, £45, £60
- Phones on contract per month - £50, £35, £25, £25, £15
- Laptops - £ 1200, £300, £267, £ 800, £250
- MP3/iPods - £100, £99, £60, £45, £30
6. What’s the most you would ever spend on a mobile phone?
- £200 - £500
- Quality, brands
7. Do you think there is an appropriate age at which children/teenagers should be exposed to mobile technology? Why?
- Primary school is too young for children to have phones
- Secondary school is better but not an expensive phone
- Pay as you go price plans are best for young people so that they spend less money on phone calls and texts – parents can control this – contract makes it harder for parents to control
8. How many of us use Apple? Why? What do you like/dislike about it?
- 2 3rd’s use Apple
- No virus’, looks nicer than windows
- More flexibility with programmes and applications
- Don’t like that it isn’t always compatible with other programmes.
9. Which form of technology to you think is most effective and why?
- Mobile phones – everyone has one, people depend on them
- Makes people feel safer, always have communication with outside world
- Allows people to stay in touch
- Not over priced, get what you pay for
- Basic idea of a portable phone relates to all generations.
10. What do you think is the next step for mobile technology? Where would you like to see technology lead on to?
- Polo grams, 3D images
