1GyAp2x

Families 177mobile phones when they are deemed old enough or responsible enoughto take on the responsibility of using or owning a phone. Parents alsoprovide their kids with mobile phones when they obtain a driver’s licenseor a car, in the interest of safety should they run out of gas or have cartrouble. Jordan, a biracial Mexican-American fifteen-year-old in Austin,Texas, recalled (boyd, Teen Sociality in Networked Publics):Well, I got my first phone in seventh grade so looking back, it might have been tooearly, but it’s important now. Like starting driving, like you go out a lot more, andI think my parents feel better that I have one. Also, so I can call them at any timeand if I need them, we’re connected.In these cases, the mobile phone represents a symbol of freedom, one thatis used by kids to justify movement outside the home and outside thepurview of their parents; when they want to go somewhere, they remindtheir parents that they will call and check in to let them know they aresafe and parents provide their kids with the phone and freedom as anopportunity to exercise judgment.However, it is also clear that kids do fail to exercise judgment and, whenmajor indiscretions occur, parents place temporary restrictions on computeraccess, gaming, and other new media as a form of punishment. Awhite sixteen-year-old named Liz and her mom discussed with C. J. Pascoewhy she was grounded from instant messaging (IM) (Living Digital):Liz’s mom: Well, what happened with the IMing thing is that the kidshave a tendency to type things in that they normally would not verbalizeto anyone. And it can get pretty vulgar and disrespectful within themselves.And it got to that point, of arguments and things happening in that aspect.So we took it away because we saw the vulgarity coming out and didn’tlike it. It shouldn’t happen. We took it away. And then she lost interest,obviously.Liz: No, I got it back. And then I was like, okay, I have to have it becauseI haven’t had it in a long time. But then I started losing interest.For Liz and her mother, being grounded was recognition of Liz’s lack ofjudgment, her failure to meet the behavior expectations that her motherhad for someone Liz’s age. As Liz’s mother noted, the secondary effect ofbeing grounded helped Liz lose interest in instant messaging, a processthat Liz’s mother attributes to growing up. In the following section, wefocus more explicitly on the negotiation of rules between kids and parents.