Abstract
This article emphasises the situated character of domestic mobile phone interactions. It investigates the importance of the mobile phone as both a communications and performance tool to Western teenagers in their formation of identity. Sociological research into the use of mobile phones by young people often neglects the domestic realm, from where a large proportion of text messages are sent. Combining theory with video data analysis of mobile phone interactions in the living room, the changing role performance of a teenager is traced as he attempts to negotiate his way to a party on a 'school night.' This video ethnography offers readings of how a mobile phone is used by a teenager to strike a 'stance-taking self' amid the contradictions of postmodern home life: the competing attentions of peer and 'family' group, the confusion of public/private spaces, conflicting household rules and moralities, and independence from and dependence on the 'family.'
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