The affordances-concept reflects itself in the commonalities in teen mobile phone use (as emphasized in Apparatgeist theory): mobile phones aid in teens’ identity development by affording them a private communication channel with which they can communicate with their friends (and family) anytime and anyplace, and — in the case of text messaging — by affording them increased control over their writings.

When Ms Lasén went back to London, Paris and Madrid a few years later, phone behaviour had, by and large, become the same in the different cities (although Spaniards still rejected voicemail). Yet it is not just the Apparatgeist that explains this, argues Ms Lasén.

Therefore, we coin a new term that encompasses the intersections of these two domains, namely the social person and the mobile machine. It seeks to encompass both the folk and the expert frameworks; tangible and intangible aspects; material and social issues; and, quintessentially, the machine and "spirit" elements of flexible interaction with assistive technology. For this we propose the term Apparatgeist, which originates from Latin and here is derived from the German and Slavic word, apparat, meaning machine. The Germanic suffix, Geist, denotes spirit or mind.