Moveable Types: The Emergence of Mobile Social Media in Australia

This paper discusses youth and mobile media, with a particular focus on the emergence of mobile social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Drawing on qualitative research conducted for an Australian national study, it finds that social media on mobiles is well on the way to being entrenched in the everyday lives of our respondents—intertwined with text messaging as important technologies of friendship, intimacy, family and other relationships. It is argued that this connection between mobiles and online social networks means that we can no longer look to the phone as a sealed, standalone and portable vessel of connection and engagement, but as a portal that opens into many other spaces.