MobileActive.org

This article explores the practice of ‘‘beeping’’ or ‘‘missed calling’’ between mobile phone users, or calling a number and hanging up before the mobile’s owner can pick up the call. Most beeps are requests to call back immediately, but they can also send a prenegotiated instrumental message such as ‘‘pick me up now’’ or a relational sign, such as ‘‘I’m thinking of you.’’ The practice itself is old, with roots in landline behaviors, but it has grown tremendously, particularly in the developing world.

Based on interviews with small business owners and university students in Rwanda, the article identifies three kinds of beeps (callback, pre-negotiated instrumental, and relational) and the norms governing their use. It then assesses the significance of the practice using adaptive structuration theory. In concluding, the article contrasts beeping with SMS/text messaging, discusses its implications for increasing access to telecommunications services, and suggests paths for future research.

Text messaging has become a popular form of communication with mobile phones worldwide. We present findings from a large scale text messaging study of 70 university students in the United States. We collected almost 60, 000 text messages over a period of 4 months using a custom logging tool on our participants’ phones. Our results suggest that students communicate with a large number of contacts for extended periods of time, engage in simultaneous conversations with as many as 9 contacts, and often use text messaging as a method to switch between a variety of communication mediums. We also explore the content of text messages, and ways text message habits have changed over the last decade as it has become more popular. Finally, we offer design suggestions for future mobile communication tools.