The fourth screen: Mediatization and the smartphone

Abstract

Smartphones have enjoyed nearly unprecedented rates of adoption, and within a short time they have quickly become a uniquely important mobile communication device, especially among young people. While such observations are compelling, they lack a conceptual context. This paper theorizes the smartphone in the general terms of mediatization. Emphasis is on existing and emerging technologies of the mediatization process and the consequent “intercorporeal” relationships users construct with the smartphone. Empirical findings about the often intensely personal usage of the smartphone document this phenomenology. The paper concludes by introducing three provocative implications of new media like the smartphone, which are both indicators and motors of mediatization, as focuses for future study: technogenesis, or the coevolution of people and their information machines; embodied and extended cognition, the intensifying interweaving of mind and thinking machines; and the subjectifying process of individualization, ever more dependent on digital self-creation and self-maintenance.

Analfanautas y la cuarta pantalla: ausencia de infodietas y de competencias mediáticas e informaciones en jóvenes universitarios latinoamericanos

“…Según Rodríguez (2013, p. 188) las razones que apoyan su utilización masiva se debe a la capacidad de adaptación a las condiciones del consumo del usuario, la vinculación con su identidad, y la incorporación, reproducción y simultaneidad del contenido generado. En suma, la cuarta pantalla es la nueva prótesis digital que ensalza la omnipresencia del usuario a través de la multifuncionalidad (Magallanes, 2015) y la expresión de sus emociones (Miller, 2014).…”

The Dematerializing Interface

“…Today's increasingly wireless environments, from home audio to GPS mapping and social media on the run, are a foretaste of what is to come. Commonplace mobile media like the smartphone and tablet are highly portable and deeply personal objects, with touch screens and natural language capabilities that minimize a sense of artificiality in their use (J. Miller 2014b). Wearable wristbands and jewellery are primary means of monitoring, recording and transmitting one's vital signs, whether for the prosaic care of chronic medical problems or the self-tracking activities of the quantified-self movement (Viseu andSuchman 2010, Ruckenstein 2014).…”

The Cognitive Ecology of the Internet

“…Perhaps such results should not come as a surprise given the way in which many individuals now relate to their mobile phones. To an ever-greater extent, the smartphone is an indispensable instrument that enables the individual to negotiate the various social, cognitive and epistemic challenges that they confront as part of their daily life (Drain and Strong, 2015;Miller, 2014). This is often reflected in the kinds of deep emotional attachment that people have with their mobile devices (Miller, 2014).…”

“…To an ever-greater extent, the smartphone is an indispensable instrument that enables the individual to negotiate the various social, cognitive and epistemic challenges that they confront as part of their daily life (Drain and Strong, 2015;Miller, 2014). This is often reflected in the kinds of deep emotional attachment that people have with their mobile devices (Miller, 2014). As Vincent et al (2005) note "for some people [their mobile device] has become almost an extension of their body as they hold and fondle the device even when the device is not in use" (p. 72).…”