Following the smartphone:Ethnography of the emergent urban cultures of networked individuals

In 2010, Professor Mirosław Filiciak, together with his team, published a report “Młodzi i media” (English version “Youth and Media” was published in 2013). It contained the results of an ethnographic study focused on the use of new technologies by young Poles. It showed how new technologies became intertwined with all aspects of daily lives of young adults, including  activites such as following ones interests, learning, archiving of memories as well as friendships, and romantic relationships. The report became quite popular and it was often cited in academic publications and in mass media.

Ten years later, the project aims to update findings in the context of rapidly changing field of technology, but also to make significant methodological corrections. The last decade in media studies has focused not only on what people do with their devices, but also how devices mine users’ personal data and how they influence users’ lives. The researchers want to document how smartphones reshape both the private and the public spheres.

The project explores how individuals representing diverse social groups (e.g. social status, level of education, income, and age) use new personalized, portable technologies, which are carriers of networked individualism. The study focuses on Warsaw, because in a big city a network of relationships built around smartphones is much denser than in smaller municipalities. Furthermore, there is a gap concerning the use of smartphones in Central Europe in the global scholarship, as most studies focus on the most technologically advanced centers, such as California, Japan, and Korea or on peripheral spaces of the Global South. In this context, the post-Soviet, semi-peripheral city of Warsaw, which has been experiencing a rapid growth in wealth and a widening wealth-gap, is a compelling research site. The study follows smartphones and their users representing different social classes, ethnicities, genders, ages as well as education and income levels. Researchers observe local residents of Warsaw, commuters, and migrants. The results of these ethnographic observations and interviews will be juxtaposed with other data sources, including expert interviews, discourse analysis, and quantitative data gathered from smartphones obtained with their users’ consent.