The Cell Phone, Constant Connection and Time Scarcity in Australia

Abstract

There can be little doubt that the cell phone is one of the most rapidly diffused devices in the history of technological innovation. Worldwide there are now over 1.7 billion cell phone accounts, 600 million more cell phones services than fixed lines (Castells et al. 2007). Many contemporary social scientists have seen the social effects of diffusion of portable information and communication technologies (ICTs) as signaling a historical watershed. For example, Virilio (2000) has asserted that ICTs, including the cell phone have transformed proximity, so that it is now based on time rather than place. The capacity of cell phones to operate regardless of location gives rise to new patterns of continuous mediated interactions (Agar 2003; Katz and Aakhus 2002; Licoppe and Smoreda 2006). While Nicola Green (2002) argues that mobile technologies afford novel opportunities for intensifying strong ties, others presume these technologies encourage work problems to 'spillover' and colonize the social spaces and times once reserved for family life (Fligstein and Sharone 2002; Chesley 2005; Duxbury et al. 2006). ... This paper sets out to examine three propositions about cell phones and time pressure. The first proposition is that the cell phone has been instrumental in accelerating the pace of life. Concretely, the analysis presented here tests the hypotheses that: 1. Frequent cell phone use will be associated with a heightened sense of time pressure (H1). 2. The cell phone as a 'work extension technology' (tested by examining whether cell phone use, out of business hours, is predominantly or substantially connected with work tasks) (H2). 3. Cell phones contribute to the intensification of work effort (tested by examining whether greater cell phone for work increases people's experience of time pressure) (H3).