Visual Mobile Phone Content and Developmental Challenges

In public debates and scientific discussions, young people are often described as “Generation Mobile” (Schuh, 2007) or as “Digital Natives” (Tapscott, 2009). Not only are adolescents provided with a label, but they are also provided with the “media society” in which to grow up. These labels include two main generalizations. First, they reflect the adult outsider perspective on young people and refer to the integration of youth in societal contexts. Second, these labels emphasize the increasing importance of media for growing up today. In fact, adolescents

are

“digital natives” because they deal with a comprehensive and complex media ensemble including PCs and laptops with internet access, MP3 players and portable PlayStations and, of course, mobile phones (Kraut, Brynin, & Kiesler, 2006; MPFS, 2009). Nearly every adolescent owns at least one mobile phone with a variety of multimedia-based functions and digital services. It is assumed that girls and boys use media to deal with developmental challenges that are very important in this phase of life, especially to negotiate relationships and develop identity, but also to organize everyday life in school and leisure and delineate norms and values.