Mobile Performances of a Teenager:A Study of Situated Mobile Phone Activity in the Living Room Dylan Tutt Abstract: This article emphasises the situated character of domestic mobile phone interactions. It investigates the importance of the mobile phone as both a communications and performance tool to Western teenagers in their formation of identity. Sociological research into the use of mobile phones by young people often neglects the domestic realm, from where a large proportion of text messages are sent. Combining theory with video data analysis of mobile phone interactions in the living room, the changing role performance of a teenager is traced as he attempts to negotiate his way to a party on a ‘school night.’ This video ethnography offers readings of how a mobile phone is used by a teenager to strike a ‘stance-taking self’ amid the contradictions of postmodern home life: the competing attentions of peer and ‘family’ group, the confusion of public/private spaces, conflicting household rules and moralities, and independence from and dependence on the ‘family.’ Under the Horizon of Notice ‘ Dad! Quick!’ yells Jenny (age 14), as competition for the phone line, with brother Ben (12), brews up into a full-scale fight. Their father Peter (46) tries to settle it: ‘Any more arguing and there’ll be another house rule! In other words nobody, but nobody, uses the phone’. Jenny snaps back, ‘That’s not going to affect me, cos I never get to go on it!’ Mum, Jean (45), comes home in the aftermath of the argument, having stopped off at the supermarket on her way back from work. She appeals to Ben to ‘just get a move on’ in his use of the phone line. He wins out for now, taking advantage of the ‘school work comes first’ house rule for the internet, having spent the last hour nattering to his friends on the phone. ‘The selfish prick,’ is Jenny’s verdict. It’s early evening in the Turner household. While his younger sister and brother, Jenny and Ben, battled it out for control of the landline telephone and Internet, Scott (age 17) has been texting around his friends to work out the plans for tonight’s party – a party, that is, on a CONVERGENCE: Volume 11, Number 2, 2005 – p. 58