An exploratory study of the intrapsychic and interpersonal uses of mobile phones in a cohort of emerging adults

Abstract

For approximately the last decade, mobile phones appear to be the technological device of choice - widespread in populations, kept bodily close, and inextricably integrated with many facets of life. Despite this ubiquity, and contrasted to the growing interest in the psychoanalytic community regarding technology broadly, there has been a relative absence in scholarly investigation considering mobile phones specifically. This research sought to explore the psychodynamics of relationships with mobile phones, and specifically attempted to narrate, understand and conceptualize how mobile phones were used by participants in representation, utilization and experience. Eight post-graduate students from the University of the Witwatersrand between the ages of 21-29 self-selected into the study; non-probability, purposive, convenience sampling was used, and ethical approval was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committee (non-medical). Participants were interviewed using the in-depth psychoanalytic interviewing method, and the data was analysed using a psychoanalytic narrative analysis. Using case study methodology, participant’s idiomatic themes were explored, however there also emerged themes of universal developmental tensions across participants. These themes appear to be particularly saliant to emerging adulthood - those which involve conflicts around merger, connection and separation; transitional phenomena; and our ability to use our internalized and real objects. The mobile phone was considered as playing a role in the generation of thirdness. When used as a third it aided participants in thinking, reflexivity and connection. When it collapsed as a third, abilities to reflect, contain, and use it in service of relational aims were compromised. This research adds novel contributions to the small body of pre-existing psychoanalytic research regarding mobile phones, and argues that if we develop increased understanding regarding the conscious and unconscious aspects of mobile phone usage, we may be able to better use and understand our responses to these technologies, and perhaps contribute to public discourses around mobile phones as well as to their development and usage.