What are you currently working on?

I’m co-editing a special issue on mobile disconnection at Mobile Media & Communication with the fabulous Mora Matassi and Trine Syvertsen. I’m really excited to shepherd folks along the intersections between mobile communication and digital disconnection, exploring how people disconnect amidst constant connectivity. There’s so much tradition and potential in investigating connection and disconnection in tandem. I’m also pumped to continue building bridges between these scholarly communities. 

 

Can you share a project that changed the way you think or work? 

Working on Joe Bayer’s Project mCog has changed me to the core. It was a fantastic opportunity to work on a multi-faceted dataset, including experience sampling surveys, digital trace data, and trip questionnaires. Lisa Rhee and I spent lifetimes processing the data for a series of papers that have tried to capture the complexity of the modern mobile landscape, embracing slow science and earning me a series of sloth socks. I’ll highlight our recent paper on smartphone and spatial habits as an example of empirically interweaving mobile communcation with spatial mobility, a weaving that very much still looms on my loom (featuring those darn affordances).

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Ross, M. Q., Rhee, L., Le, H. T. K., Mount, J., Chang, Y.-J., & Bayer, J. B. (2025). Smartphone habits are stronger in spaces chosen out of habit. Scientific Reports, 15, 41252. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-25174-2

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Which piece of work feels closest to your heart, and why?

In undergrad, I embarked on my senior comprehensive project with the goal of applying this cool-sounding concept of self-extension to an object that certainly seemed like an extension of the self: the smartphone. I bumbled my way through the project, ran another, better version of the study when I arrived at Ohio State, and was lucky to publish the result in MMC. It’s closest to my heart because it was my first project in mobile communication, but also because it expresses (probably too simply) one of my core interests in mobile media: that our sense of self becomes inextricably connected to this device that we carry around with us anytime, anyplace.​

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Ross, M. Q., & Bayer, J. B. (2021). Explicating self-phones: Dimensions and correlates of smartphone self-extension. Mobile Media & Communication, 9(3), 488–512. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157920980508

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What's a question you keep returning to?

“What’s wrong with self-reports?” Self-reports have taken a beating recently, and I won’t stand for it. Sure, they’re not accurate, but they’re accurate-ish, their inaccuracies are worth studying, and they are crucial to capture constructs that are inherently perceptual (…like self-extension!). And the alternatives to self-reports are often so. much. work (…like Project mCog!). I don’t think these alternatives are often feasible for many folks for whom the below triad of time, money, and logistics are very much a concern, I don’t think we should gatekeep these folks from scholarship, and I don’t think shiny data and methods are necessary for research that is still in early stages of development. So, that’s my question, coming soon to an ICA near you. Julius, there’s the rant you requested!

 

If you had a tagline or motto, what would it be? 

In the words of Ron Swanson, “don’t half-a** two things, whole-a** one.” To decompose this motto into between- and within-person variance, I do not obey it at the between-person level (yet), but I strive to obey it at the within-person level. When I am working on a research project, I try to focus on that project, without any (mobile-mediated or other) distractions. I find that deep work is necessary to produce high-quality research.

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If time, money, and logistics weren't a concern, what dream project would you dive into?

I would love to dive into a once-and-for-all phubbing project, building on all of the awesome work that folks like Michal Frackowiak and Anisha Arenz have been doing in a comprehensive study that has literally no limitations. The fundamental element of phubbing—simultaneous face-to-face and mediated communication—is endlessly fascinating and frustrating to me. I want it solved!

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What's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were starting out as a scholar? 

I’m going to flip this around to highlight something that I am GLAD I was told. Before starting grad school, Scott Campbell gave me the advice to manifest being one step up on the academic ladder: a grad student while in undergrad, a postdoc or assistant professor while in grad, and so on. It’s not a license to be cocksure, but rather a reminder to focus on professional development. Each rung on the ladder prepares you for the next, so if you prepare to walk the subsequent walk from your rung, you won’t feel like an imposter when you get there.

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What is a book or paper that shaped the way you think about the world?

I’ve got to go with Feed by M.T. Anderson. The book describes a world where people have “feeds” (basically implants) in their heads and one girl’s attempt to fight the feed. It pretty directly resulted in my research interests in mobile media and solitude / disconnection. Especially when studying technology, I think it’s important to be plugged into technological imaginaries in science fiction and beyond. I’m proud to have a signed copy from when he visited the Sheboygan Book Festival!​

 

Who's someone whose work deserves more attention - and who you want to nominate as the next featured scholar? 

This question kept me up at night. But ultimately I would love to spotlight the ebullient Leah Komen. Her work on mobility and identity in the Kenyan context deserves more attention and is a key part of the global remit of ICA’s most global division!