April 14, 2008
New Tech, New Ties
A book by Rich Ling sounds like a must read to all interested in the social impact of cell phones. Called New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion, the message of this book is simple: the mobile phone strengthens social bonds among family and friends.
With a traditional land-line telephone, we place calls to a location and ask hopefully if someone is "there"; with a mobile phone, we have instant and perpetual access to friends and family regardless of where they are. But when we are engaged in these intimate conversations with absent friends, what happens to our relationship with the people who are actually in the same room with us?
In New Tech, New Ties, Rich Ling examines how the mobile telephone affects both kinds of interactions--those mediated by mobile communication and those that are face to face. Ling finds that through the use of various social rituals the mobile telephone strengthens social ties within the circle of friends and family--sometimes at the expense of interaction with those who are physically present--and creates what he calls "bounded solidarity."
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2008/04/019769.htm
