Texting everywhere for everything: Gender and age differences in cell phone etiquette and use

The majority of research on cell phone use has focused on adolescent and young adult users with less attention on cell phone use by those older than 25 years of age. In this study, adult participants from 18 to 68 years completed a survey about their own use of cell phones and the contexts in which they considered cell phone use appropriate. There were age and gender differences in beliefs about the etiquette as to when cell phone use was appropriate. Older participants and women advocated for more restricted cell phone use in most social situations. Men differed from women in that they viewed cell phone calls as more appropriate in virtually all environments including intimate settings. Across all age groups in all communication settings, cell phones were used to text. The only exception was that romantic partners were more likely to receive a call than a text. In the younger age groups, texting communication is so nor-mative that over 25% had dumped or were dumped by a romantic partner. The preponderance of gender similarities point to cell phone usage as a stable communication vehicle for maintaining social contact. Cell phones initially provided the luxury of immediate contact with others in one's social network any time, any place. However, the cell phone has morphed from a luxury into an appendage. In addition, the relatively new ability to text has dramatically changed the usage landscape in a very short time period. With respect to cell phone ownership and usage, 85% of US adults own a cell phone and 90% live in a household with a mobile phone (Zickuhr, 2011). Among those adults, 18–24 year olds text and call the most – 1299 text messages and 981 call minutes, on average, per month. Texting drops precipitously in subsequent age groups from 592 to 32 texts per month. Call minutes drop more gradually from 952 to 398 monthly minutes (Wicklin, 2010; Zickuhr, 2011). Despite the prevalence of cell phones, little is known about differences and similarities in cell phone use across gender and age when both calls and texts are taken into account. In particular, despite frequent popular press articles on cell phone etiquette (Bowers, 2011; Cenicola, 2011), it is unclear if there are generally acknowledged rules about where, when, and how to use one's cell phone in any of its many capacities. Much of the literature on cell phone use has focused …