Children and young people's telephone use and telephone cultures in Britain c. 1984-1999

年轻人使用电话的方式从一对一的语音交流转变为通过短信和社交媒体参与的书面和视觉交流，这是一项关键的文化发展。尽管过度使用手机对年轻人的潜在有害影响仍在继续研究，但新冠肺炎事件进一步突显了电话技术作为年轻人社交、教育和技能发展工具的重要性。年轻人远距离交流方面的这些发展有一段重要的、但在很大程度上没有人研究的历史。我的研究是对现代英国年轻人使用电话的第一次研究，时间跨度为1984-1999年。通过结合档案研究、口述历史研究和社区参与者的研究，在当代青年背景下，我调查了这个时代年轻人使用电话的机会(和限制)，包括固定电话、公共电话和移动电话。我考察了电话在年轻人生活的不同方面的重要性，包括在游戏文化、休闲、家庭建设、家庭生活和友谊的调解、时尚身份的主张、作为教育工具、在工作场所以及寻找建议和帮助方面。在这样做的过程中，我追踪了年轻人使用电话在历史上是如何成为关于隐私、保护、依赖和社会不平等含义的辩论的核心。年轻人当今的电话使用通常被分析为一种个性化的表达。我问，这对电话与儿童和年轻人赋权之间的历史联系；他们对家庭和社区监督的谈判；他们的社会化；以及自我建设，有什么启发和忽视的地方。这些联系在1984至1999年间发展得特别迅速，这与英国电信部门市场化的变化、移动电话拥有量的增加以及儿童和青年权利的新道德规范有关。在这个时代，电话的使用可能没有成年人的调解，而是被媒体、国家和市场动员起来，作为年轻人自我表达和社会参与的工具。这项研究以孩子们自己的经历和感受为中心进行分析，从5岁的孩子学习如何拨打999到电话提供商鼓励十几岁的男孩与他们的女朋友交谈的广告不等。追踪集体规定的信息、在媒体和流行文化中构建的信息以及非正式(日常)教育之间的竞争，我考察了20世纪80年代/90年代年轻人使用电话的情况，认为这既是一种活动，也是对身份形成的贡献。这项研究的价值超出了历史学术的范畴。该奖学金使人们能够更深入地了解年轻人使用电话的情感、文化和社会影响，以及关于电话与年轻人的福祉和安全之间的关系的现代辩论。我正在与英国电信遗产与档案馆和约翰·汉萨德画廊合作，该项目在三个方面结合了历史研究和与社区团体和年轻人的共同研究：i)地方和国家收藏的档案研究，以及文化和媒体来源的研究，以恢复儿童在不同环境中使用电话的历史声音；ii)口腔历史研究，收集成年人使用电话的童年记忆；iii)共同研究当代青年环境中的艺术实践，以及使用数字人文方法进行众包研究，以创建自20世纪80年代以来南安普敦年轻人的‘电话空间’的互动在线地图。这张地图是一个计划在英国范围内绘制年轻人使用电话的地点、时间和方式的试点研究项目，该项目将在联谊会结束后进行。

The shift in young people's use of telephones from one-to-one voice communication to written and visual communication through texting and engagement with social media represents a pivotal cultural development. While the potentially harmful effects on young people of excessive mobile phone use continue to be studied, the COVID-19 emergency is emphasising further the importance of telephone technologies as tools for young people's social connection, education and skills development. These developments in young people's distanced communication have a vital, yet largely unstudied, history. My research is the first study of young people's telephone use in modern Britain, covering the period c.1984-1999. Through combining archival research, oral history research and research with community participants and in contemporary youth contexts, I investigate young people's access (and restrictions) to using telephones in this era, incorporating the landline, public telephone and mobile phone. I examine the significance of telephones in diverse facets of young people's lives, including in play cultures; leisure; the construction of home; mediation of family life and friendships; the assertion of fashionable identities; as an educational tool; in the workplace; and for locating advice and help. In doing so, I trace how young people's telephone use has been historically at the heart of debates over the meanings of privacy, protection, dependency, and social inequality.Young people's current-day phone use is analysed typically as an expression of individualisation. I ask what this illuminates and overlooks about the historical connection between telephony and children and young people's empowerment; their negotiation of family and community surveillance; their socialisation; and construction of selfhood. These connections evolved particularly rapidly in the years between 1984 and 1999, linked to changes in the marketization of the UK telecommunications sector; the rise of mobile phone ownership; and new ethical formulations of children's and young people's rights. Potentially unmediated by adults, telephone use was mobilised by the media, state and market in this era as a tool for young people's self-expression and social participation. This research centres children's own experiences and feelings in its analysis, moving between examples as varied as five-year-olds learning how to dial '999' and telephone providers' advertisements encouraging teenage boys to talk to their girlfriends. Tracing contestations between corporately-prescribed messages; those constructed in the media and popular culture; and informal ('everyday') education, I examine young people's telephone use in the 1980s/90s as both an activity in itself and its contribution to identity formation. The value of this research extends beyond historical scholarship. The Fellowship enables deeper understandings of the affective, cultural, and social impact of young people's telephone use upon modern debates about the relationship between telephones and young people's wellbeing and safety. I am collaborating with BT Heritage & Archives and the John Hansard Gallery, and the project combines historical research and co-research with community groups and young people in three strands: i) archival research in local and national collections, and research in cultural and media sources, to recover historical voices of children in relation to telephone use across diverse settings; ii) oral history research, collecting adults' childhood memories about their experiences using telephones; and iii) co-research using arts practice in contemporary youth settings, and crowd-sourced research using digital humanities methods to create an interactive online map of young people's 'phone spaces' in Southampton since the 1980s. The map is a pilot-study for a planned UK-wide project mapping where, when and how young people have used telephones, to be conducted after the Fellowship.