When reflecting on mobile culture, the first ideas that came to mind were positive, but, upon further reflection, I realized that, although I greatly benefit from being able to connect to the internet wherever I want, contact friends and family when I like, my relationships with mobile technologies hasn’t been that positive lately. I realize that, most of my interactions with my mobile technologies are accompanied by guilt. “I should have practiced some Spanish on Duolingo today,” “I shouldn’t care so much about my Duolingo streak,” “I can’t believe I haven’t answered ____’s WhatsApp message yet,” “Oh no, my screen time notification told me I’ve spent more time on my phone this week than last,” and the list goes on. I feel bad for not accomplishing more on my phone/tablet, but also for spending so much time on my phone/tablet. I imagine this guilt would be even worse if I felt it was eating into family time or if it intervened with my work. Just like with most things, I figured I wasn’t the only one and went to explore something called ‘mobile guilt.’
There’s an article entitled ‘Gen M suffers from mobile guilt‘ (Nikravan, 2015) where they stated that 58 percent of Generation Mobile (Gen M) feels guilty about either completing work at home or doing personal errands while ago work. The article goes on to talk about how there is a shift in what we deem acceptable in the workplace when it comes to addressing personal issues or tasks. Another article entitled ‘Workers feel ‘mobile guilt’ over other personal and work calls‘ (Nair, 2015) revealed that “taking work calls at home and personal calls at work cause anxiety for Gen M workers” (para 1). Those two articles are from 2015, but the use of technology in our everyday work and personal lives seems to have only increased. Last year, an article entitled ‘Too much or too little messaging? Situational determinants of guilt about mobile messaging‘ (Halfmann et al., 2021) was published. Here, Halfmann et al. affirm that I am not alone in feeling guilty about spending too much time messaging, but also feeling I don’t message enough:
“On the one hand, we assume that guilt can arise if we message too much when we could be doing something else. On the other hand, we may feel guilty about too little messaging, i.e., when others expect us to be readily available via messaging, but we do not meet that expectation” (Halfmann et al., 2021, para. 2).
References:
Halfmann, A., Meier, A., & Reinecke, L. (2021). Too much or too little messaging? Situational determinants of guilt about mobile messaging. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 26(2), 72-90. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmaa018
Nair, P. (2015, April 21). Workers feel ‘mobile guilt’ over other personal and work calls. Growth Business. https://www.growthbusiness.co.uk/workers-feel-mobile-guilt-over-both-personal-and-work-calls-2483541/
Nikravan, L. (2015, July 13). Gen M suffers from mobile guilt. Talent Management. https://www.talentmgt.com/articles/2015/07/13/gen-m-suffers-from-mobile-guilt/