COMM731 Culture , Media and Everyday Life : An Autoethnographic Essay
In this autoethnographic study , MOLLY ROSE reflects on her own engagement with digital media . She uses her own experiences with theoretical ideas on iPhone / smartphone use in her everyday life . She approaches this task considering the impact losing her iPhone had one her , illuminating how reliant she was on it for an array of things including feeling safe .
In September this year I lost my iPhone and for the following week without it felt physically and socially limited . This event revealed just how reliant I am on my iPhone and helped me to think about my personal use in a critical way . I will relate the issues faced without my iPhone to present examples of use now that I have it back . I am now hyperaware of the safety and ease I feel when I have it with me , and I believe being without it has forced me to realise I depend on it heavily for many things , including companionship , emotional and physical security . I will relate this to the issues of iPhone ‘ companionship ’ and safety firstly , then to personalisation and ‘ nomophobia ’, and then to private ‘ bubbles ’ and ‘ phubbing ’.
In my daily life , I find myself relying on my iPhone for safety and comfort . Walking to and from the library , particularly in the late afternoon when it gets dark , I feel a sense of safety knowing that if something were to happen , I would be able to use my phone to contact someone , order an uber , share my location with a contact , or record an incident with my built-in camera . On the occasion of losing my iPhone , I did not walk alone on this route , or in the dark , and instead travelled by bus or taxi . In this , I perceive my iPhone as my ‘ companion ’ ( Hughes and Mee , 2019:2 ). I feel less alone when I have it with me , because of the security affordances it offers me .
My iPhone essentially acts as ‘ a tool which impact ( s ) upon our body limits , shifting the variable boundaries of embodiment , and altering our sense of having a body ’ ( Richardson , 2007:206 ). Without the iPhone , I cannot speak with someone who is miles away , or notify someone of my exact location , something I am now conditioned to perceive as a normal power to be capable of , after having an iPhone for the past 8 years or so . My iPhone extends as ‘ a way of having a body ’ ( ibid , 206 ), and so I interpret it as an extension of my own body . When this was taken away , as it was briefly , I felt physically limited in the world .
I feel a sense of ease knowing that with a few taps , and the press of my thumbprint on the home button to pay
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COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA