M.Soc.Sc. Eerik Mantere presents three new concepts to depict face-to-face situations where at least one of the participants is using their smartphone: sticky media device, bystander inaccessibility, and smartphone moves.
Sticky media device depicts a lack of fluency in interaction when someone is interacting with their phone and another participant at the same time. Bystander inaccessibility highlights how others typically have little access to the activities of the smartphone user. This leads to ambiguity on the nature of the situation, as well as the interaction, as interaction gets its meaning from the situation where it happens. Smartphone Moves present a typology to study embodied forms of smartphone use and their impact in face-to-face encounters.
“I studied 11 hours of video recordings from everyday face-to-face encounters in Finland, France, and the United States and identified 13 frequently occurring embodied positions people take with their phones. Based on these positions, I created a method to show more precisely how even tiny modifications in the physical relation to one’s smartphone may carry important social meanings,” Eerik Mantere says.
Smartphones pose new interactive challenges for their users because the ongoing non-verbal creation of mutual understanding sometimes requires resources that are also needed in interacting with the phone. For instance, people can only gaze at one direction at a time.
Socially intelligent use of smartphones can facilitate face-to-face interaction
However, smartphones also offer new means to organise face-to-face situations by adjusting the corporal aspects of smartphone use. Situationally aware smartphone use may facilitate the enactment of interaction and the skilful modification of participation.
“Smartphone moves can be used, for instance, to hold onto the speaker role when another participant is trying to hijack it,” says Mantere.
According to Mantere, smartphone moves can make personal smartphone use temporarily designated as the main involvement in the situation. They may also be utilised to bring focused face-to-face conversation back as the main involvement.
“All ways of using smartphones in face-to-face encounters are not problematic. Developing mindfulness, or embodied awareness, might help people to be aware of when they reach for their phones and how they hold them,” Mantere explains.
The dissertation suggests a strong connection between low social intelligence and disturbing smartphone use, or phubbing. Previously, phubbing has mainly been associated with smartphone addiction, but Mantere suggests that phubbing-related conflicts can be better avoided by a combined training programme of mindfulness and social intelligence.
Mantere, born in Pielavesi, Finland, works at Tampere University, and is also associated with the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Bordeaux, France. He lives in Brazil and Finland.
The cotutelle double doctoral dissertation of Master of Social Sciences Eerik Mantere in the fields of social psychology (Tampere University) and sociology (Université de Bordeaux) titled Smartphone Situation: Personal Smartphone Use During Face-To-Face Encounters will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tampere University at 16.00 on Monday 19.12.2022 online via Zoom.
The Opponent will be Assistant Professor Stephen DiDomenico from West Chester University while Professor Atte Oksanen from the Faculty of Social Sciences acts as the custos.
The event can be followed via remote connection.
(Zoom Meeting ID: 637 4907 4729)
The doctoral dissertation is available online.
Photo: Aku Rosenqvist