Mobile Fantasies on Film: Gathering Metaphoric Evidence of Mobile Symbiosis and the Mobile Imaginary

Mobile communication studies are often limited in their ability to capture the entire domain of a mobile phone call. These limitations often require that researchers separately study what is going on between the caller, the recipient of the call and those with whom they are face-to-face. Two scenes from two different American films were used as a means to document the ways in which users imagine mobile phone use. The scenes were coded for evidence of contextual seams, interpersonal seams, mobile symbiosis and the mobile imaginary. Mobile communication provides new opportunities for sharing experiences and tasks that could not exist without the mobile aspects of the phone. Understanding how mobile phones serve as a medium onto which we project our deeper psychological needs provides a glimpse into the fantasies and fears around mobile phone use.