Tag: mobile technology trends

The results of a recent study have shown that the texting language that is used is different between the sexes.

Adolescence is a time in which self expression can feel as though it is quite challenging and complicated, and with the added number of channels that are now available for communication – from in-person to phone, video calling, emailing, social media posts, and texting, among others – online and mobile technology appear to be revealing trends in the way that teens talk.

Texting has become an especially important channel for social communication among teenagers.

This seemingly basic form of communication gives teens the opportunity to talk to others – including people from the opposite sex – without being watched over by peer groups or their parents, in the majority of circumstances. Now, research published in the Journal of Children and Media has looked into the way that this mobile technology is used, and the trends in language and how they differ between the sexes and in overall gender identity when using text.

This mobile technology based study was conducted across four different American cities within nine focus groups.

Each focus group contained participants between 12 and 18 years of age. The mobile technology investigation was designed to provide a broad understanding of the way that teens communicate over smartphones. They looked into a number of different kinds of social interaction, and what they found notable was that even over mobile devices, the historical language use differences between males and females appeared to be maintained in the texting styles used by the boys and girls who participated.

While the boys in the study viewed their mobile devices as a kind of status symbol for the performance of a certain function, girls were more interested in chatting and socializing. The boy side of a conversation was fast and direct, with a specific purpose in mind, and then it was over, for example, making arrangements to meet. One of the boys implied that long text conversations were exclusively for girls. Another called the tests that girls send “just BS”.

The girls, on the other hand, liked to socialize and converse over text, and used smiley faces and emoticons to enhance their words. They viewed texting over mobile technology as another way of building and maintaining their friendships. What was interesting was that when boys were texting girls, the guys admitted to “playing the game,” that is, using longer and emotive texts to avoid misrepresenting themselves which could lead to hurt feelings.

The results of a new data analysis are now suggesting that smartwatches and other wearable tech may be great for employees.

According to the results of a study that was recently commissioned by Rackspace, the adoption of wearables within a workplace can be beneficial to the productivity of a company’s workers and can even help to boost job satisfaction.

As wearable technology becomes increasingly popular, this insight could help to boost its adoption.

The research showed that while wearables can have several benefits, there have also been concerns raised by professionals in IT departments, regarding the security of these newly released devices. They have cautioned that newly generated data could not only have a lower mobile security level than on laptops, smartphones, or tablets, but it could also cause an explosion in the workload for those IT departments as a range of new wearable technology devices – and all of their associated problems and questions – flood a workplace.

The findings of this wearables study are the result of the Human Cloud at Work project.

The Human Cloud at Work project examines the difference that mobile devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers can make to a corporate working environment. According to the project’s leader, Chris Brauer, “Wearable technologies are arguably the biggest trend since tablet computing, so it’s natural that employees and businesses will look to use these devices in the workplace.”

Brauer also went on to explain that “Using data generated from the devices, organizations can learn how human behaviors impact productivity, performance, well-being and job satisfaction.” The study indicated that nearly one in three large British businesses are already planning or practicing a trial or pilot program for wearable tech.

Though that figure may seem large, the American figure is even larger than that, as nearly two out of every three large businesses in the U.S. said that they were planning to or were currently testing the use of this type of gadget.

Clearly the predictions that 2014 would be the year of the wearables are proving to be quite true, as companies and consumers, alike, show their interest in this type of technology.