An Analysis of the Various Functions of the Mobile Phone Practiced by High School Male and Female Students in Tehran

This paper is the result of a research project performed to serve two main purposes: 1-understanding various dimensions of mobile phone user-defined functions, 2- studying factors affecting modes of using mobile phones. The type and the expense of using mobile phone constitute the two dependent variables of the research. The Independent variables of the research consist of six categories and each category includes various numbers of variables. This categorization takes place on the basis of Webster & Wakshlag Model. The questionnaires of this survey were distributed among 600 random research samples which included male and female high school students in Tehran. The findings of the research revealed that most of the respondents used mobile phones less than three hours per week and the total average mobile use among all samples was about 5/99 hours per week. Also and in the average, the students sent 121 SMSs and received 124 SMSs per week. The content of the students’ SMSs by frequency-order were as follows: everyday job-related necessities, ethnic jokes, educational jokes, sexual jokes, greetings, political jokes, condolence, and pornographic messages. The analytical results revealed that restrictions imposed on mobile phones have no effect on the type and extent of mobile phone use; users’ motivations have significant effect on the use of mobile phone. Also, the finding indicated that there is a significant negative correlation between the amount of time spent for family and the extent of mobile use.