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进行书面和视觉交流，这是一项关键的文化发展。虽然还在继续研究过度使用手机对年轻人的潜在有害影响，但COVID-19紧急情况进一步强调了电话技术作为年轻人社会联系、教育和技能发展工具的重要性。年轻人远程通信的这些发展有着至关重要的历史，但在很大程度上尚未得到研究。我的研究是第一个对现代英国年轻人使用电话的研究，涵盖了c.1984-1999年。通过档案研究、口述历史研究、社区参与者研究和当代青年语境的结合，我调查了这个时代年轻人使用电话的途径（和限制），包括固定电话、公共电话和移动电话。我研究了电话在年轻人生活的各个方面的重要性，包括在游戏文化中；休闲;建设家园；调解家庭生活和友谊；时尚身份的主张；作为教育工具；在工作场所；以及提供建议和帮助。在此过程中，我追溯了年轻人的电话使用如何在历史上成为关于隐私、保护、依赖和社会不平等意义的辩论的核心。年轻人现在的手机使用情况通常被分析为个性化的表现。我问，这说明了什么，又忽视了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;以及自我的建构。这些联系在1984年至1999年间发展得特别迅速，与英国电信部门市场化的变化有关；手机拥有率的上升；以及对儿童和青少年权利的新的伦理表述。在这个时代，电话的使用可能不受成年人的影响，被媒体、国家和市场动员起来，成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分析中心，在不同的例子之间移动，从五岁的孩子学习如何拨打“999”到电话供应商鼓励十几岁的男孩和他们的女朋友说话的广告。追踪公司规定的消息之间的冲突；在媒体和大众文化中建构的；和非正式（“日常”）教育，我研究了20世纪80年代/90年代年轻人的电话使用，这既是一种活动，也是一种对身份形成的贡献。这项研究的价值超出了历史学术的范畴。在关于电话与年轻人的健康和安全之间关系的现代辩论中，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。我正在与英国电信遗产与档案馆和约翰·汉萨德画廊合作，该项目将历史研究与社区团体和年轻人的共同研究结合在三个方面：1)对地方和国家收藏的档案研究，以及对文化和媒体资源的研究，以恢复儿童在不同背景下使用电话的历史声音；Ii)口述历史研究，收集成年人使用电话的童年记忆；iii)在当代青年环境中使用艺术实践进行合作研究，以及使用数字人文方法进行众包研究，以创建自20世纪80年代以来南安普顿年轻人“电话空间”的交互式在线地图。该地图是一项试点研究，用于计划中的全英国范围内的项目，该项目将在奖学金结束后进行，绘制年轻人使用电话的地点、时间和方式。

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.