People, mobiles and society: Concluding insights from an international expert survey (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Sociological Outlook of Mobile Phone Use in Society
2014
Mobile phones have become the most important and integral part of today"s lifestyle and mobile handset has become a widely recognized consumer artifact. Where the mobile phones have great and huge merits there are also demerits as well. There are also gender differences in mobile phone usage. The primary objective of this article is to show the effect of mobile phones on society and this article clearly show that the mobile phone has a huge effect on people and the way they interact with others.
In discussing the effect of the use of mobile phones, this chapter is not about the device itself but rather all that it engenders. The mobile phone is a means of achieving continuous connectivity provoking feelings of intimacy and of being permanently tethered to loved ones as well as of being on call to less welcome people. It is the ways that people have adapted existing social practices to manage this that lies at the heart of the explanation of whether or not people are affected by their mobile phones. Three case studies from research are used to provide an empirical context for examining the topic. This research was conducted during two years of studies1 completed in 2004 that investigated the social shaping of the new third generation mobile phone technology. Theoretical aspects are addressed by exploring some of the ways in which others have examined the sentient aspects of our lives to reveal the complex mesh of elements that affect everyday life. It continues by highlighting analogies between these writings and the social practices of mobile phone users identified in the research
The Structural Transformation of Mobile Communication: Implications for Self and Society
Mobile communication is a relatively new form of interaction. It has only been commonly available in developed countries for the past two decades and in developing countries for less than that. Perhaps because the rise of mobile communication is so recent, the juxtaposition of its use against traditional social practice illuminates issues in a new way. To be sure, mobile communication's explosive growth as an everyday life resource has given us a lens through which we can study both sociological and psychological developments. Despite being a relatively new addition to the media landscape, the assuredness with which we appropriate our mobile devices speaks to well routinized use. When we reach for our phone to fill in what Fortunati (2002, p. 518) calls the "smallest folds" of life, we manipulate them with ease. In addition, at the social level, we increasingly understand that it is expected of us to have a mobile phone. Our friends and family expect us to be available to them, to be socially "on call." Through mobile communication, we become more attached to one another, not to mention to the technology itself. Without the device, it is not uncommon for a user to feel utterly disconnected and psychologically distressed .
In this chapter, Rich Ling examines the social structuring of mobile communication into the flux of everyday life. Mobile telephony is compared to other social mediation technologies, most specifically mechanical timekeeping that has many of the same characteristics. He notes that there is a critical mass of users who have reciprocal expectations with regards the use of the technology. The social role of mobile communication is also explored vis-a-vis power relations, its use in emergency situations, the negative dimensions of mobile telephony, and its future developments. Ling starts with a brief history of the mobile phone. He explains how the iPhone and the development of 3G networks shifted mobile communication and social interactions from one-to-one communication on feature phones, to quasi-broadcasting, crowdsourcing, and location-based activities on smartphones. He then describes how mobile phones are so engrained in daily life that they are now taken for granted. Ling concludes by explaining how the assimilation of the mobile phone into social structures and its use for social coordination is similar to that of mechanical time keeping and the automobile. The question and answer portion of this chapter examines three topics: the development of the field of mobile communication, the ways in which mobile phones mediate social interactions, and the future of mobile phone use. The discussions about the field of mobile communication reveal how it has been established through conferences and peer reviewed journals, as well as data collection methods like big data, focus groups, and surveys of mobile users. The discussions surrounding mobile phones and social mediation address what it means for mobiles to mediate relationships and how this mediation impacts power structures within society. Finally, the discussions on the future of mobiles include the mobile internet, wearable devices, and implanted technologies. In the conclusion, I extend these discussions and describe additional theoretical frameworks, methods, and emerging areas of research within mobile communication. The theoretical frameworks I present suggest several lenses for interpreting patterns of mobile phone use, while the methodological tools I describe show diverse techniques for collecting data on mobile devices. I also describe an analytical method that allows scholars to identify the uniquely mobile aspects of mobile communication. Finally, I suggest several trends for further exploration in mobile communication that employ the frameworks and methods described.
Mobile Society, Technology, and Culture
Internet Technologies, Applications and Societal Impact, 2002
The paper takes into account three vital categories, namely mobile society, technology, and culture. Our world gets mobile. More and more people carry out their activities on the move; it might be business, entertainment, education or just socializing. Communications become wireless and invisible, and cheaper and cheaper, the distance and location factors get increasingly irrelevant. We are quickly approaching the point beyond which we shall have good reasons to think in terms of mobile society. The purpose of this paper is to investigate certain relationships between new technologies, especially the Internet and mobile technologies, and culture. It seems that technology and culture work in opposite directions. Even a more dramatic diagnosis seems to be legitimate, viz. technology displaces culture. The major message of this discourse is that: One has to vividly oppose to the displacement of culture. The rationale is simple, viz. a decline and atrophy of culture is in many ways an extremely negative phenomenon for democratic society at large, which at the end of the day will also affect the technology itself. Towards this end, the MOST Programme (Mobile Open Society through wireless Telecommunications) was started; a short note on its objective is given in the paper.
The Mobile Phone as the Globalizing Icon of the Early 21st Century
This paper presents the findings from a qualitative study of mobile phones and youth culture in Melbourne, Australia. The focus is on how the social dynamic resulting from the use of such communications tools has created a paradigm shift that has changed the nature of inter-human relations. Mobile facilitated interaction is driving a fundamental change in social mores with respect to engagement and commitment, to notions of fluid time versus fixed time and ultimately to urban mobility. Connectivity is becoming central to what it means to have a social identity and users are responding to this by merging bits of data to create their 'ideal digital self' through which they communicate socially. This calls into question the nature of 'digital identity', indicating it is not only about how much information can be restricted, but rather, what is revealed. While the results are based on a localized study, it is proposed that this phenomenon is happening across societies and that mobile phones themselves are becoming the globalizing icon of youth culture in the early 21 st Century.
Social Pathology of Mobile Phones: Mobile Phones and Social Deviations
2014
In specialist resources of the sociology of deviations, the effect of technology in general and information and communication technologies in particular on the quality and quantity of social deviations are discussed. Every emerging technology has some effects on the nature of social behaviors. There is usually a sort of gap or delay between the advent of technology and social behavior adjustment. Social response or reflection to technology can have both functional dimensions and non-functional dimensions. In fact, a technology may have been engendered with other objectives in mind. However, during times, it will be assigned by other functions which necessarily may not be adjusted with the social norms of a society, but it may be assigned by some pathological nature. In other words, a technological innovation, however it may result in increasing the level of welfare and facilitating the social life and supplying or satisfying some needs, in the same proportion, it may pave the path f...