Can we get around rural isolation? Adolescents and mobile telephones in rural areas: a case study in Galicia

International Journal of Communication 7 (2013), 2586-2608 1932–8036/20130005 Copyright © 2013 (Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org. Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? Adolescents and Mobile Telephones in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Galicia CARLOS FERRÁS 1 YOLANDA GARCÍA MARIÑA POSE University of Santiago de Compostela This article presents the findings of research examining a group of secondary school students from an agricultural district in rural Galicia, Spain. Research methods used include quantitative and qualitative techniques such as participant observation. The authors analyze to what degree and for what purpose rural adolescents communicate via mobile telephones and if gender accounts for any significant differences in this usage. Our findings show that rural adolescents are indeed avid users of mobile telephones and suggest that because of this they are getting around the physical inaccessibility and inherent isolation of rural communities. Keywords: mobile telephone, text message, adolescents, digital divide, rural isolation Introduction In Spain, 53% of households were connected to the Internet in 2011, a rate below the EU average of 56%. According to Méndez and Rodríguez (2011), in Spain there are still large differences between rural and urban regions in the use of communication technologies. This was particularly true in Galicia, a historical region with strong rural traditions located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in which only 40% of families were connected to the Internet. According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) of the Spanish Government for 2011, mobile telephone usage is strongly established there, with an average of 1.1 mobile telephones per capita. In Spain, access to the Internet via mobile telephones is widespread, and it is third in European usage rates after Norway and Sweden (Orange Foundation, 2012). However, in Spain, access to high-speed networks through mobile telephone is not possible in rural areas located away from the main communications networks that run near motorways 1 This article is based on research financed by the Department of Innovation of the Spanish government (CSO2009-10894). Carlos Ferrás: [email protected] Yolanda García: [email protected] Mariña Pose: [email protected] Date submitted: 2011–10–17 International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2587 and railway lines. In the case of Galicia, INE data for 2011 show lower rates of mobile Internet access and lower rates of household Internet access than the national average. In this context, we ask how Galician rural teenagers use mobile telephones to overcome their geographical isolation and what gender differences may exist in this regard. The isolation of rural communities has been a recurring topic (Copus, 2001). Rural adolescents have never had the same ready access to means of communications as have their urban counterparts because the arrival and spread of innovations and technology to rural areas has always lagged behind cities (Cairncross, 1997; Warf, 2012). Likewise, because of the physical distances and low population densities involved, face-to-face communication has also been limited. Rural isolation plays a large role in explaining why social relationships and communication have always been different in rural and urban areas (Cairncross, 1997; Kalantaridis, 2006). But now we are currently witnessing a new process in which rural adolescents participate substantially in mobile communications, and it is possible that future rural economic development might be shaped less by low rates of accessibility and isolation (Friedman, 2006). Conventional landline telephones were slow to arrive in Galician towns and villages, but our findings show that mobile telephone usage is spreading quickly and with it comes a greater possibility of overcoming the geographical and social isolation and inaccessibility inherent in rural areas. In a study of Spanish university students by Gordo López (2006), the Internet is seen as a channel of participation and expression, a culture of easy and instantaneous communication readily accessible to young adults and adolescents. In this study, we observe that mobile telephones and text messages also constitute vital elements in the socialization process of secondary school students in rural Galicia. Interesting questions arise as to the extent this technology contributes to bridging the digital divide between rural and urban communities, how and for what purpose it is used, and its relationship to conventional off-line means of communication. This article presents the findings of research carried out on a group of secondary school students from the district of Santa Comba, an agricultural region found in the interior of A Coruña, Galicia. The fieldwork was conducted during two weeks in March 2011. Our objective was to examine mobile telephone usage among rural adolescents and determine if and to what extent gender accounted for any significant differences in usage, particularly in text messaging. Our research methods include quantitative and qualitative techniques as well as participant observation in group work sessions held in the students’ school. Our findings show that mobile communications technology is fully deployed in this rural community. How Do Today’s Adolescents Communicate? Mobile telephone technology is the most widespread technology used by adolescents today and the one with the greatest functional impact (Martínez, Miguel, & Tortajada, 2009). In a gender comparison, 73% of adolescent Spanish girls have a mobile telephone compared to 64% of adolescent 2588 Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose International Journal of Communication 7(2013) boys. 2 Mobile telephones have been the focus of both quantitative and qualitative studies on the use of technology by adolescents and the implications this has on the shaping of gender identity. In this study, we analyze the influence of mobile telephones on the shaping of gender identity among adolescents in a rural community and gender differences in the linguistic functions that text messages serve for boys and girls. The literature on information and communications technology (ICT) points to a persistent digital divide in terms of gender (Castaño, 2008; Katz, 2003; Ochaita, Espinosa, & Gutiérrez, 2011; Wajcman, 2006). Mobile telephones possess a special set of attributes that make them particularly appealing to females, especially adolescents (Ling, 2008). Ling (2004) and Chen and Katz (2009) talk about the mobile telephone and its personal nature as an extension of social life, its role in the formation of identity, its influence in reshaping the temporal and spatial rhythms of social interactions, and its powerful ability to serve as a socializing agent and facilitator of familial and social ties. In addition, there are important factors related to intimacy, privacy, and safety (Castells, Fernández-Ardevol, Qiu, & Sey, 2007; Chen & Katz, 2009; Inkinen, 2008; Katz, 2003; Katz, 2006; Ling, 2008; Martínez et al., 2009; Pertierra, 2006). There are also aspects that adolescents find appealing, including mobile telephone’s accessibility, text messaging, multifunctionality (i.e., numerous applications that can be downloaded), and entertainment possibilities (Katz, 2003; Ling, 2004). One must also add that parents, likewise, contribute to usage as they use mobile telephones as a way of keeping tabs on their children. According to a study by the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías de la Comunicación (INTECO) and Orange Foundation (2010), 88% of Spanish parents are reassured knowing they can contact their children on their mobile telephone. But surprisingly, children do not feel they have any less freedom or privacy in their personal relationships just because their parents can readily contact them. In fact, 69.6% of adolescents think that having a mobile telephone grants them more, not less, autonomy. Adolescents on the road to adulthood are typically involved in a complex and often confusing process of identity formation; they thus place far greater social importance on friends than they do on family (Naval & Sádaba, 2005). In this sense, mobile telephones are a way to communicate with their social network of peers, free from parental control (Ling, 2002). At the same time, other studies warn against the potential harmful effects of excessive use of mobile telephones by adolescents, 3 who are generally more prone to engage in addictive behavior with ICTs because they are highly sensitive to their social environment and because this technology is so present in their lives. However, adolescent addiction to mobile telephones is currently unsubstantiated. 2 . See Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías de la Comunicación (INTECO) and Orange Foundation (2010), Estudios sobre seguridad y privacidad en el uso de los servicios móviles por los menores españoles [Studies on security and privacy in the use of mobile services by Spanish minors] and Estudio sobre el uso de los smartphones en los menores [Study on the use of smartphones in the minors]. Retrieved from http://www.inteco.es/Estudios/Estudio_moviles_menores and http://www.inteco.es/Estudios/Estudio_smartphones_menores 3 . For example, see Graner, Beranuy, Sánchez, and Castellana (2007), Qué uso hacen los jóvenes y adolescentes de internet y del móvil? [How youth and adolescents use the Internet and mobile pHone?]. In Luís Álvarez Pousa, Joám Evans Pim, Óscar Crespo Arigbay (Eds.), Comunicación e xuventude: Actas do Foro Internacional (pp. 71–90). León, Spain: Arco Libros. International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2589 What findings do show is that the majority of adolescents and young adults generally exhibit reasonable use of mobile telephones and the Internet, with only occasional problems. However, misuse of these technologies can have negative consequences for family relationships and academic performance. Along with their socialization aspect―the possibility of maintaining immediate contact with one’s social networks―mobile telephones have also meant a sort of liberation for adolescents from their parents. Moreover, having a mobile telephone is a way for adolescents to define their identity: Not only can they customize their mobile telephone’s numerous functional features in so many ways, but they can also create their own codes of communication (Ling, 2002, 2004, 2008). During adolescence, communication with one’s peers is fundamental, so much so that the role models once played by parents are played by peers, who now make up an adolescent’s main point of reference (Malo, Casas, Figuer, & González, 2006). Social relationships with peers are generally more important for girls than for boys. For Ling (2002), this fact is associated with a type of presocialization, which girls undergo during adolescence for the subsequent roles they will adopt as adult women. These roles are related to the contribution women make to maintaining social and family relationships. As Martínez et al. (2009) confirm, in many cases mobile telephones are not used for actual conversation but rather as a way to search for emotional involvement or to act as a kind of virtual copresence. In other words, one seeks recognition as belonging to the group, confirmation of a long-distance social relationship, being part of the receiver’s life, in short, just “being there.” This is especially important for the rural adolescents in our study who, because of geographical distances and low population density, frequently cannot physically be copresent with their peers. Many linguists have found it more appealing to deal with communication than with language and to concern themselves with all those aspects, codes, and phenomena that intervene in the communicative process. For this reason, pragmatics has gained followers among language scholars: The communicative situation surrounding the speakers―their shared understanding of the world, deductions, inferences, and implications―also forms part of the message and gives meaning to its production. We can decipher the meaning of an isolated utterance if we understand the code in which it was produced. But we are only able to understand its true meaning if we know the context and situation in which it was produced; what purpose it serves in interactions; and who used it and under what social, personal, and cultural circumstances. The formal simplification to which written language has been subjected in new channels of technological communication is a consequence of the potential that extralinguistic factors have in the construction of sense. A synthetic written language, seldom subjected to traditional conventions, can still be effective: It keeps the communicative situation in mind and is enriched by visual codes. In this way, it reflects and, in turn, shapes how new generations perceive and structure the world. Methodology and Field Work Our case study was conducted in a secondary school in Santa Comba, a rural agricultural district in Galicia located 35 kilometers from Santiago de Compostela (Figure 1). From a socioeconomic perspective, the region of Santa Comba exhibits the classic rural pattern of low demographic density. It has a population of 10,500 inhabitants distributed throughout dozens of farms and villages. Over the last four decades, it has undergone pronounced rural flight and has experienced demographic contraction. 2590 Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose International Journal of Communication 7(2013) Nonetheless, Santa Comba boasts highly fertile land for cattle ranching and specializes in dairy cattle and milk production. This environment has led to higher-than-average per capita income than other Galician districts and an equal or even higher income than some Galician cities (Instituto Galego de Estatistica, 2008). We carried out our research in a public secondary school called Terra do Xallas. Our study was only possible thanks to the cooperation of the administrative and teaching staff along with that of the adolescent participants themselves, whose ages ranged from 12 to 15. Given that all the participants were minors, we obtained their parents’ consent (through the school’s administration) prior to initiating our research. Participant observation and data collection took place in the classroom during four intense work sessions with two focus groups. Our qualitative research method was based on participant observation techniques, with close individual and group interaction among researchers and students alike. Communicating with young adolescents is no easy task for adults outside their social circle. In light of this, we set out to establish an informal and thought provoking working relationship. We communicated the details and objectives of our research openly and clearly, thus creating an atmosphere of mutual trust. Research and data collection took place in two consecutive and complementary phases. We divided the participants into two focus groups: older adolescents (aged 14 to 15) with greater experience using mobile telephones but who were more apprehensive about publicly showing their text messages and younger adolescents (under age 14) with less experience using mobile telephones but who were more willing to share their text messages. In the first phase of data collection, we formed a focus group to gather the opinions of 19 10thgrade students (7 boys and 12 girls), all between the ages of 14 and 15. The topics discussed included ownership of digital technologies, ability and experience using digital technologies, patterns of interaction and communication, expressions of identity, invasions of privacy, physical and emotional safety, and addictive behavior. During the discussion, we systematically introduced information about the topics to be discussed. From there, students gave their opinions on, and subjective evaluation of, that information. These opinions and evaluations then served to initiate group dialogues and discussions. So as not to influence the participants’ opinions, we strictly limited our participation in these discussions to observation. However, it is possible that our mere presence as researchers might have affected the results. In the second phase, we collected, observed, and analyzed the mobile text messages of 16 seventh-grade students: 8 boys and 8 girls aged 12 to 14. To do so, students were asked to complete an open survey in which they reproduced the text messages they had sent prior to completing the survey and that were saved in the sent messages area on their mobile telephones. The students themselves chose which messages to include and reproduced the text exactly as it had been sent. In addition, they also rewrote the text as it would appear in full form using formal rules of writing. 4 We also collected data 4 . All original text messages and their full-form versions are reproduced herein exactly as they appeared on the surveys without linguistic modification of any kind. The students’ full-form versions demonstrate International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2591 regarding their age (all were born between 1996 and 1997), sex, language of choice, and approximate time they spend sending text messages daily. Despite the selection process explained in the methodology, we were able to analyze all the SMS generated by all surveyed in a fairly brief period of time. The fieldwork was conducted during two weeks in March of 2011. Initially, 15 girls and 12 boys agreed to participate. Whereas the interest of the girls held steady throughout the study, boys were not as enthusiastic. Four of the male students who agreed to take part turned in blank surveys. Although we do not know exactly why, we can make the following assumptions as to the factors that might have intervened in their decision:  They had few or no messages to share because they had to “clean them up” since their parents check their mobile telephones (as the students themselves often allege). In any case, both the participants and their parents or legal guardians were fully aware of this part of the study prior to participating in it.  They might have doubted the autonomous nature of the survey, fearing that their teachers would recognize their handwriting.  Masculine language used in texts may be crude, and they might not want anyone outside of their social circle to see it.  The considerable interest that this activity generated among female students might have caused a sort of distrust among their male peers. One must wonder if boys consider texting “girly” compared to other forms of communication, which would explain their reservations about the survey. If this is indeed true, in a rural environment like the one in this study, male sensitivity to gendered roles is perhaps even greater than that of females when the boys hide their problems of isolation. In the case of some male students, our knowledge of their social and personal circumstances leads us to assume that either they do not have a mobile telephone or they lack a social network of friends with whom to exchange messages. Consequently, so as not to call attention to either situation—especially in front of their classmates—they pretended to participate but turned in blank questionnaires.  Finally, boys and girls might text for different reasons; that is, the function text messaging serves is gender specific. Boys and girls might choose the type of ICT that best responds to their needs and communicative intentions, and these choices might differ between genders. What purposes text messaging serves for boys and girls is precisely the unknown variable in our study. Compared to the average number of messages sent by girls (17), the average sent by boys (9) is considerably lower, and their messages are strikingly more brief as well. Consequently, our final data set consisted of 210 text messages: 136 from girls and 74 from boys. that they still have not internalized the formal rules of writing or, at least, that they have not taken them very seriously (especially if they are not going to be tested for it). 2592 Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose International Journal of Communication 7(2013) Figure 1. Location of the study area in Galicia, Spain. Source of map: Ferrás and O’Flanagan (2012). Adolescents Continually Connected The findings of this study show that adolescents make use of a wide variety of mobile telephone functions. These include making voice calls, taking and downloading photos, listening to music, exchanging files, and playing games. For the majority of adolescents, mobile telephones represent an extension of their social life, a form of making their presence known and of displaying their personality to their peers. This expression of identity occurs both through the usage of the telephone as well as through the physical telephone itself, which can be customized with faceplates, ringtones, icons, and wallpapers. For most adolescents, mobile telephones have become an everyday object fully integrated into their lives. All of the adolescents who participated in the focus groups have their own mobile telephone. They do admit, though, that in some places―such as at school―they knowingly run the risk of having the telephone taken away. The following type of comment was heard frequently among the participants: “At International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2593 school we can’t have mobiles. Either you hide them really well or they get taken away from you. But everyone takes one anyway.” We observed that of all the functions that mobile telephones offer, the one used most is text messaging. However, this has more to do with an economic decision than with a personal choice. The majority of the students surveyed, especially boys, prefer calling their friends rather than making the effort to compose a text message. The following types of comments were frequently heard in the focus group discussions:  Girl: “We send more messages, lots more, all of them.”  Boy: “I like calling better than texting, but I have to do it [text] because it’s cheaper.”  Boy: “I text because it’s free with my calling plan, but I call too. I prefer to call, and since I have a contract I always call.”  Girl: “That’s because our parents pay for the Internet and we have to pay for our phones. If my mobile was free, I would use it more.”  Boy: “I also prefer to call. I’m really lazy; it takes me forever to type a message.”  Girl: “I’m not lazy about sending texts, but it depends on who you’re talking to. There are some people you don’t want to talk to, so you send them a text.” What is striking in many cases is that mobile telephones are not used to talk, per se, but rather to set up an alternative contact 5 using another technological device (on the Internet or a landline phone). Here, it is the context that gives meaning to the interaction:  Girl: “I hardly talk on Tuenti 6 . . . you’re never connected at the same time unless you say that you’ll call and hang up so they know to connect, and basically when I want to set up a time to talk with people, I do this: I say, ‘Give me a missed call [on my mobile] and we can talk on Tuenti.’ It’s easier. It’s like we use our mobile to notify each other about something, but we talk on the Internet. Mobiles are for when you don’t have Internet right then.” We observed that girls valued intimacy and privacy in their communications more than boys did and that mobile telephones formed an important part of this private sphere. As one girl explains, 5 See Simón, A. (2008). Tuenti, la competencia de Facebook hecha en España [Tuenti, facebook competition made in Spain]. In Cinco Días. Retrieved from http://cincodias.com/cincodias/2008/04/11/empresas/1207921214_850215.html 2594 Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose International Journal of Communication 7(2013) You can’t use the Internet to actually talk; you always have to type. And if, let’s say, you’re talking to someone and are afraid that someone else might see you or something like that, it’s better to talk on the phone. For the majority of the participants, mobile telephones are indispensable to communicate with their peers, not because they can actually say things but because they can maintain contact with each other. Mobile technology is thus seen as an extension of their body; it is never switched off and goes wherever they do. They need to be continually connected:  Boy: “You take your mobile out of your pocket, and that’s it. You always have it with you, and you don’t have to be writing when you don’t have time.”  Girl: “You take your mobile everywhere. You just grab it and go.” In this sense, using a mobile telephone has more to do with being connected than with the message itself. This gives mobile communication a phatic-appellative function: the caller appeals to the receiver to make his/her presence known while the caller is simultaneously making his/her own presence known. Observe the following comments:  Boy: “But it’s like lots of times, okay, you can think about what you’re going to say, but you talk just to be talking; you say silly things just because it’s free and you want to use up the messages you’ve got left [referring to the free message offers by mobile phone companies], and so you write ‘Hey! What’s up?’ and you send it to different numbers.”  Boy: “It depends. Sometimes you call someone and you have to talk the whole time because there are some really boring people out there. You give them your life story, and they don’t tell you a single thing. You can call and then not say anything. I’d rather talk on the phone than send a text . . . but talk about something. There are also things that you’re embarrassed to talk about on the phone and you end up sending a text. Besides, my parents don’t even know how to read texts.” We also observed that only on rare occasion do mobile telephones constitute an invasion of privacy. In fact, it is precisely because their parents can reach them at any time on their mobile telephones that adolescents feel they actually have more freedom of movement and independence.  Girl: “Since I have my mobile, I feel more independent.”  Girl: “I don’t feel like my parents control me more. They don’t call me so much, and besides, if I want to arrive a little late, I call them, and that’s it. It’s better.”  Boy: “It’s like, besides, say you want to stay out a little longer, you can let them know at home, and everything’s okay. If you don’t have your mobile, you have to go home.” International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2601 Table 1. Appellative and Phatic Functions of Mobile Telephones. Appellative Function Phatic Function Why didn’t you go to school? Let me know. Hey what’s up. Let me know please I’m bored. Come at 17:15. can you? What’s up? Bring the camera and don’t give anything to olga in front of anybody. What are you doing now What do “antonela” and “nemias” want to do to me at the store [“nemias” is a nickname] Yeah, we’d better stop I’m using up all my minutes. Ciaooo [belly laugh] Are you going to Santiago? Please let me know hon kisses. Abbreviate for crying out loud!! Hi when you come can you bring me the camera cord please. What are you doing? Bring me the tennis balls please they’re on the coffee table. Hi Lucia. [laughter] What’s up hon did you see Madri Barsa [MadridBarcelona football match] Hi beautiful! Can’t talk now. What’s up did you see the film on Channel 3 Tell me something please. Here are some of the messages coded as having a referential or expressive function: Referential function Expressive function They punished me and won’t let me go out Hey sweetie! That’s life! No one wanted you to go. The English ones are on page 32 of the workbook Sorry it’s just that I’m really embarrassed playing on the PlayStation I love you so much! More than anyone in the world. II. The Correlation Between the Function of the Message and Gender We correlated gender with the functions of the messages, which form the independent and dependent variables, respectively. To do so, we used VARBRUL computer software (Goldvarb X for Windows). 10 The findings of how these two variables interact with each other are highly significant: 10 . Goldvarb X is a software package that is widely used for quantitative studies on linguistic variation. It works with the statistical model of multiple regressions. All the VARBRUL applications are free. The one used in this study can be downloaded along with its user manual at 2602 Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose International Journal of Communication 7(2013) VARBRUL, through multiple regression analysis, reached convergence in the fifth iteration. An analysis of the cross-tabulation tables (Table 2) shows that 45.7% of the messages have an appellative function, 21.4% phatic, 17.1% representative, and 15.7% expressive. In terms of gender, the most significant differences occur with the appellative, phatic, and expressive functions: boys sent 65% of the appellative messages, compared to 34.4% sent by girls. These percentages are reversed for messages with a phatic function: 63.3% sent by girls, compared to 36.7% by boys. The expressive function is much more frequent among girls (77% compared to 23%), and the representative function is the same (50%) for both sexes. More than 140 of 210 messages analyzed used an imperative or an interrogative; 70 were from boys and 70 from girls. In addition, we identified two basic linguistic resources used in text messages to express appellative intentions: the interrogative and the imperative (Table 3). Of the 42 appellative messages sent by boys, 32 contained an interrogative and 10 an imperative function. Cross tabulation of the variables interrogative + imperative yielded only one occasion where the two variables occur together. These results indicate that boys prefer the interrogative over the imperative. Girls sent 22 messages with an appellative function, 21 formulated with an interrogative, and 9 with an imperative, the two variables occurring in at least 9 messages. These findings thus indicate that the use of an interrogative plus an imperative for the appellative function is more frequent among girls. 11 We correlated gender and the use of politeness formulas and their relationship to the appellative function. The statistical analysis of this variable did not yield significant results given the low number of occurrences of these formulas. It seems there is little room for courtesy in adolescents’ text messages: only 11% contained expressions such as please, thanks, or a modal verb with an infinitive (“can you tell me”). Girls sent 75% of these messages. We likewise examined if the use of the vocative was used to tone down the appellative force of the message and coded its use by differentiating between the absence of the vocative and the presence of a denotative or affective vocative. Here, the findings were equally insignificant since 80.5% of the 140 messages analyzed lack a vocative of any kind. Only 26 contained a vocative, 19 of which were affective (“cutie,” “hon,” “beautiful,” “sexy,” “sweetie”) and 7 denotative (the receiver’s name). There are also no notable gender differences in the use of the affective vocative (8 cases by boys and 11 by girls). Likewise, the presence of the vocative is not associated with the appellative function of the message given that of the 19 messages that contained affective vocatives, 10 were phatic, 5 appellative, and 2 expressive. The 7 denotative vocatives that appeared in the sample belong to messages with diverse linguistic functions. http://individual.utoronto.ca/tagliamonte/goldvarb.htm. A complete description of this application and its use in sociolinguistic research is found in Moreno Fernández (1994). 11 . The use of a question mark is not always necessary to identify this function. Example: “Despois queres vir comprar a tarde conmigo”[Later do you want to go shopping in the afternoon with me]. The modal verb “querer” (want) in the second person singular is sufficient to assign an appellative-interrogative value to the utterance. International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2603 Table 2. Text Messages by Gender and Linguistic Function. Linguistic Function Girls No. (% of N) Boys No. (% of N) All Subjects N (% of N) Appellative 22 (34.4) 42 (65.6) 64 (45.7) Expressive 17 (77.3) 5 (22.7) 22 (15.7) Phatic 19 (63.3) 11 (36.7) 30 (21.4) Representative 12 (50) 12 (50) 24 (17.1) Ns 70 70 140 VARBRUL output: Convergence at iteration 5; Input 0.503; Group # 1—r: 0.497, a: 0.341, f: 0.630, e: 0.770; Log likelihood = −98.806. Table 3. Text Messages by Gender, Linguistic Function, and Linguistic Resource Used. Number of Messages Using an Imperative _________________ Number of Messages Using an Interrogative ____________________ Function by Gender Not Used Used N Not Used Used N Appellative Girls Boys 13 32 9 10 22 42 1 10 21 32 22 42 Expressive Girls Boys 16 5 1 0 17 5 15 5 1 0 16 5 Phatic Girls Boys 18 11 1 0 19 11 7 4 12 7 19 11 Representative Girls Boys 12 12 0 0 12 12 12 12 0 0 12 12 N Girls Boys 59 60 11 10 70 70 35 31 35 39 70 70 2604 Carlos Ferrás, Yolanda García, Mariña Pose International Journal of Communication 7(2013) Conclusion For the rural adolescents in our sample, mobile telephones have become an integral part of daily life, which they use primarily to exchange text messages. They feel that having a mobile telephone gives them greater independence from their parents and allows them to become socially integrated in their peer groups. Girls are more dependent on their mobile telephones than are boys, and they value the intimacy this technology allows them to have in their social relationships more as well. They also place greater value on knowing their relatives can locate them at any time and the sense of security this gives them. Although both boys and girls expressed feeling a certain amount of anxiety if they are deprived of their mobiles, girls experience this anxiety to a greater degree. When complex communicative exchanges are what adolescents seek, text messages serve to set up a time and place to meet or to redirect interaction to another channel of communication. But even though adolescents prefer other systems of communication (such as voice calls or Internet chat rooms), they are more inclined to use mobile text messaging because it is quick and affordable. It is precisely these two features that adolescents take advantage of to be permanently connected to their peers. What is important for adolescents is to establish a mutual “being there” with their peers, that is, to verify that their friends are “there” while confirming their own presence. This explains why their text messages have a predominantly appellative, phatic, or phatic-appellative function: to solicit interaction or to open or maintain a communicative exchange. As Carmen Galán (2004) affirms, being informed in these new times is nothing more than constantly being online, that is, available to and locatable by everyone and for the most frivolous things. . . We no longer have to “tell things,” we have “to be locatable,” which is the same as saying identified. (p. 1100) Obtaining data from female participants was much easier than from male participants; girls seem to be more inclined than boys to use mobile text messaging, or at least are more willing to share their experience. The reasons for this difference are unclear. One possibility contemplated and confirmed in this study is that boys and girls use text messaging for different reasons; therefore, it is more interesting and effective for one group than for the other. What our results reveal is that girls take particular advantage of this form of communication for expressive and phatic functions. Working with a corpus of text messages instead of with complete sequences of dialogues greatly limits our understanding of the messages and their intentions. Only by having the sequence of turntakings that comprise the complete communicative exchange can we begin to understand those messages whose intentions are ambiguous, 12 analyze the presence of greetings and leave-takings, detect code11. Even so, in some cases we would most likely have to have access to the communicative situation and the shared understanding of the world between sender and receiver, which are highly complicated to obtain. International Journal of Communication 7 (2013) Can We Get Around Rural Isolation? 2605 switching caused by external factors, and understand why punctuation has become superfluous in communicative situations that rely on writing. It is interesting to observe where the priorities of adolescents have taken language itself. The desire for monetary savings has led to linguistic economy as well in the reduction of characters. Their ultimate objective is to send a message whose intention is perfectly clear at the lowest monetary and linguistic cost possible. Perhaps we are witnessing the creation of a new type of jargon linked to language economy in which the pragmatic factors that surround a communicative act are increasingly crucial for the message to make sense. In short, we can argue that traditional rural isolation can be overcome thanks to the mobile telephone. 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