Brand in hand? a contextualised account of adolescents' mobile phone consupmtion

This paper contributes to the movement away from the "solitary subject", offering a conceptualized account of adolescent experiences of mobile phones. It reports on discussions with sixteen small groups, informed by phenomenological principles. The antipathy towards commercial applications suggest that the technology brings marketers no closer to this elusive market. This is attributed to the roles it plays in the social lives of adolescents: to include and exclude, to organise, experience, re-live and redefine everyday expereiences. Young people's relationships with practioners were more akin to the elusive "sand in the hand" than the hoped for "brand in the hand