Abstract

As advances in cellular phone technology allow for greater functionality, cell phones are beginning to take on much more prominent and multi-faceted roles in our lives. Once viewed simply as a replacement of the landline, cell phones are now used for much more than communicating with friends, family, and coworkers; indeed, they are used to send and receive text-messages, carry out mobile banking services, listen to music, play games, and browse the internet. These advances require the development of more granulated theory in regard to how individuals adopt and use their cell phones, in both work and social contexts. In this research-in-process, we blend social capital theory and media richness theory in an attempt to determine why different individuals use the (common) features of their cell phones differently - why do some people text more than they call, and vice versa? Further, we investigate how individuals cope when they are prohibited from using a technology that they have already adopted for hedonic purposes (e.g. cell phones). To begin answering these questions, we collected and interpreted exploratory data from students, and developed a research model that we intend to test in the future.

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