Have Cellphones Erased Social Taboos?

Yesterday I spoke to a reporter about the notion of whether or not growing up with cell phones actually leads teens to feel like they can do stuff more easily like girls asking boys out. The discussion actually began with the story of a Virginia teen who called a school administrator's home to complain about not having a snow day. The teen recorded the phone call with the administrator's wife (who went a little crazy on him) and posted it on YouTube. The question was did this teen feel he could call a school official at home because, as he told the Washington Post (reg. required), "We are the cellphone generation," Kori said. "We are used to being reached at all times"?

My sense was that this was an individual kid with chutzpah who would have made this same call from a landline in a time before cell phones. Obviously he wouldn't have had the ability to post the recording on YouTube - but if he had it on an answering machine, I'm sure his friends would all have heard it. So basically - no, just because teens grew up with cell phones, they're not all calling teachers or school administrators at home to complain. Plus apart from talking with parents on their phones, it's primarily a tool for teens to speak or text one another.

The reporter then told me about a mom who claimed that the tween girls her daughter knew with cellphones were more likely to ask boys out than girls without phones — again, I wasn't convinced that the phones made them more assertive. But now I wonder — not that it was the phones that made them more assertive, but just not having to go through a gatekeeper, i.e. that boys mom or whoever might answer the phone, that makes it easier. Or maybe these groups of friends (boys and girls) with phones feel closer or more comfortable with each other than those without, i.e. from yesterday's Washington Post article (reg. required):

"The cellphone allows us to create that local sphere" that was the hallmark of pre-industrial villages, says Ling. Cellphone circles tend to be small and full of people who "know what you're up to, who you are, what's in your refrigerator. That's a way of being attached to society. It has a socializing effect."

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