“There's an App for That” Mediating mobile moms and connected careerists through smartphones and networked individualism

Abstract

The ubiquitous use of mobile smartphones and Internet-based applications commonly known as “apps,” can be viewed as simultaneously empowering and constraining for women's experiences and identities due to their potential to foster “always on” forms of sociability in both public and private spheres. We conduct in-depth interviews with women who daily use smartphone apps to understand how they use and make meaning through social media and popular apps to do with parenting (using the “Total Baby” app), fitness (“Runmeter”), finances (“Mint”) and daily tasks (“Evernote”) through Judy Wajcman's technofeminist approach, which suggests that people and artifacts co-evolve, and technology can facilitate and restrain gender power relations.

Keywords:

• mobile technology
• smartphones
• apps
• social media
• networked individualism
• public/private spheres
• gender