Spain’s National Obsession with Mobiles, Texting

An insightful and thorough article on the Spanish cell phone culture from PBS.

"... To say that Spain is crazy for cell phones is an understatement. Approximately 44 million people live in Spain, but in January of this year the number of cell phones in the country reached 50 million. There are more phones than people here.

"While Americans might also be addicted to the cell, the Spanish relationship with the cell phone has evolved differently from ours for reasons that are clear and others that remain a mystery."

... Because Spain seemed so much ahead of the U.S. in using mobile for something more than just calls, one would think that media consumption on phones would be the next logical step, but that hasn’t been the case. In 2002, Americans didn’t know what SMS was but in 2008 we are texting, watching videos, reading RSS feeds and even using VOIP on our cell phones. In Spain, most people are doing none of that — but you will see a grandmother shoot off text messages like a teenager."

Spying on the Text Generation

When it comes to watching over their tech-obsessed teenagers, parents are learning the dangers of too much information. An eight page article from the Boston Globe.

Excerpts

... "Involved parents who undertook limited monitoring for the right reasons found that, in their hunt for reassurance that their teenager was not engaging in dangerously bad behavior, they were instead worn down by the little disappointments - the occasional use of profanities or mean-spirited name-calling - as well as the mind-numbing banality of so much teen talk. Moreover, these parents came to the conclusion that it would be impossible for them not to think less of their kids if they continued to listen in, and that would be unfair, because their own parents never had transcripts of their teen conversations and were no worse for not knowing."

Mobile phones expose human habits

The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements. The BBC reports.

"The study concludes that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again.

Most people also move less than 10km on a regular basis, according to the study published in the journal Nature.

The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.

...The new work tracked 100,000 individuals selected randomly from a sample of more than six million anonymous phone users.

Each time a participant made or received a call or text message, the location of the mobile base station relaying the data was recorded.

Information was collected for six months. But, according to the researchers, a person's pattern of movement could be seen in just three.

... Although the scale of the latest study is unprecedented,it is not the first time that mobile phone technology has been used to track people's movements.

Scientists at MIT have used mobile phones to help construct a real-time model of traffic in Rome, whilst Microsoft researchers working on Project Lachesis are examining the possibility of mining mobile data to help commuters pick the optimum route to work, for example.

Location data is increasingly used by forensic scientists to identify the movements of criminal suspects."

Lliteracy Plus, Published

Those of you who like your mobile phone related research in print may want to peruse Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies edited by James E. Katz.

The book contains 32 chapters in sections covering: digital divides and social mobility; sociality and co-presence; politics and social change; and culture and imagination.

Jan Chipchase is a contributor in a chapter titled Understanding Illiteracy as a Barrier to Mobile Phone Communication.

[via Jan Chipchase blog Future Perfect]

What Your Cell Phone Knows About You

Can your cell phone tell if you're happy or overworked?

Researchers at MIT think it can do that and more--separate the rich from the poor, the sick from the healthy, even the outgoing from the introverted.

Sandy Pentland, director of MIT's Human Dynamics Research program, has focused his work on that unlikely task: using gadgets as simple as a cell phone to better understand the quirks and patterns of human behavior.

[via Forbes]

Palestinian girls, dating, and the mobile phone

Last fall, Hiyam Hijazi-Omari and Rivka Ribak presented a paper called "Playing With Fire: On the domestication of the mobile phone among Palestinian teenage girls in Israel" at AOIR.

They studied teen girls who received their mobile phones from their boyfriends and hid them from everyone else. Through this lens, they examine how the mobile phone alters social dynamics, relationships, and the construction of gender in Palestine. In short, they document how culturally specific gendered practices (not technological features) frame the meaning and value of technology.

Palestinian boys give their girlfriends phones for the express purpose of being able to communicate with them in a semi-private manner without the physical proximity that would be frowned on. At the same time, girls know that parents do not approve of them having access to such private encounters with boys - they go to great lengths to hide their mobiles and suffer consequences when they are found out. While the boys offered these phones as a tool of freedom, they often came with a price.

Girls were expected to only communicate with the boy and never use the phone for any other purpose. In the article, Hijazi-Omari and Ribak quote one girl as expressing frustration over this and saying "I did not escape prison only to find myself another prison." These girls develop fascinating practices around using the phone, hiding from people, and acquiring calling cards.

[Danah Boyd via Internet Actu. Photo Damon Lynch]

Cellphones in a supporting role

A report commissioned by the Vodafone Group Foundation and the United Nations Foundation looked at ways in which nongovernmental organizations use cellphones. The search group profiled 11 organizations that have used cellphone technology to accomplish their missions, which ranged from sex education to dispersing emergency food to stopping fights between elephants and farmers.

[via IHT]

Study. Texting is for old people

Recent research by Orange has indicated that texting could soon become a thing of the past. Research by TNS of 17,000 people in 30 countries revealed that once users adopt mobile instant messaging services such as AIM and MSN Messenger on their mobile phones, they reduce their use of text messages. UTalkMarketing reports.

"Of every 100 messages - including texts, emails and picture messages - sent by users without mobile instant messaging from their mobile phone or computer, 38 are text messages. Once consumers start using mobile instant messaging, the number of texts falls to 23 per 100.

Matthew Kirk, who heads Orange's portals business, pointed out that older people tend to continue to use text messaging, and that currently the format is thriving, with Orange customers sending an average of more than 1.3bn text messages each month between November and January, up 21%."

Homo mobilis

One of several articles featured in a special report in Economist entitled “Our nomadic future".

Homo mobilis
Sherry Turkle, the psychologist at MIT who studies the nexus between people and gadgets, believes that the tools of mobility are leading to “the emergence of a new type of person”.

In the distant, landline-dominated past, she says, people thought: “I have a feeling so I want to make a call.” Young people today, including Ms Turkle's teenage daughter, seem to be thinking instead: “I want to have a feeling, so I need to make a call.” What she means is that there is something inorganic, derivative and inauthentic about a lot of mobile communication.

As a species, Ms Turkle thinks, we run the risk of letting the permanent wireless social clouds that surround us steal part of our nature.

... If researchers in ivory towers now debate the arrival of Homo mobilis, their tongue is only partially in their cheek. Once again the biggest shift seems to involve language, and by implication thought and feeling. That major linguistic change is afoot is clear to anybody who has been around young people almost anywhere in the world. Entire subcultures now define themselves primarily or exclusively through their chosen text-messaging or instant-messaging argot. Read full article.

One third of Americans don’t use SMS

SMS Text News has picked up on a survey that claims that 35 percent of US users say they never use text messaging.

According to Wirefly's survey, "roughly a one third of US users called themselves heavy texters and sent between one or two a day to hundreds a month, with another 29 percent labeling themselves as occasional texters."

When the only connections in bed are wireless

MSNBC on how laptops, smartphones and big-screen TVs are destroying sex.

"In the US, thirty-seven percent of laptop owners say they “frequently” use the computer in the bedroom

In Britain, eight of 10 people boot up a variety of high-tech gadgets before bedtime.

Almost one-quarter of UK respondents said they left their cell phones or smartphones on — using them as alarm clocks and one in three sends or receives text messages or e-mails while in bed. "

iPhone Users Love That Mobile Web

A new study finds that iPhone users are using the Web and listening to music significantly more than those with other smartphones and mobile devices.

[via the New York Time's Bits]

Study: Most Japanese teenagers bathe and talk

According to the latest Sega research, 41.2 percent of Japanese have at least once in their lives taken their cell phones into the bath to make phone calls, send text messages, listen to music or play cell phone games.

According to Sega, teenagers are most likely to bathe and phone.

[via Kotaku]

68% of Americans feel "disconnect anxiety"

According to a recent study from Solutions Research Group, 27% of Americans feel "acute" anxiety when disconnected from the Internet or their mobiles; 68% feel some level of anxiety. [via BizReport]

"This goes for both mobile and computer connections. More than 80% of those surveyed reported that their mobiles are always with them and always on. Nearly 40% report logging on to the Internet via their computers while in bed and more than 60% admitted to using their Blackberry's in the washroom.

American's are logging on for safety, work and social life and for navigation according to the report. Many users report that they feel safer when connected via mobile or computer and many say they need constant connections because of a hectic work or social life.

Age of Disconnect Anxiety - download the U.S. research summary here.

Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old

Children increasingly rely on personal technological devices like cellphones to define themselves and create social circles apart from their families, changing the way they communicate with their parents. The New York Times reports.

"Innovation, of course, has always spurred broad societal changes. As telephones became ubiquitous in the last century, users — adults and teenagers alike — found a form of privacy and easy communication unknown to Alexander Graham Bell or his daughters.

The automobile ultimately shuttled in an era when teenagers could go on dates far from watchful chaperones. And the computer, along with the Internet, has given even very young children virtual lives distinctly separate from those of their parents and siblings.

... But as with any cultural shift involving parents and children — the birth of rock ’n’ roll or the sexual revolution of the 1960s, for example — various gulfs emerge. Baby boomers who warned decades ago that their out-of-touch parents couldn’t be trusted now sometimes find themselves raising children who — thanks to the Internet and the cellphone — consider Mom and Dad to be clueless, too."

Students With Cellphones May Take More Risks

Carrying a cell phone may cause some college students - especially women - to take risks with their safety, a new study suggests. A survey of 305 students at one campus found that 40 percent of cell phone users said they walked somewhere after dark that they normally wouldn't go. [via Cellular News]

"A separate survey found that about three-quarters of students said that carrying a cell phone while walking alone at night made them feel somewhat or a lot safer.

"Students seem to feel less vulnerable when they carry a cell phone, although there's not evidence that they really are," said Jack Nasar, co-author of the study and professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State University. "If anything, they are probably less safe because they are paying less attention to their surroundings."

Nasar conducted the study with Peter Hecht of Temple University in Philadelphia and Richard Wener of Brooklyn Polytechnic University in New York. Their results were published in a recent issue of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

The study involved online or phone interviews with randomly selected students at Ohio State. One sample in 2001 included 317 students and a separate survey one year later included 305 students.

... The biggest issue may be that when people are talking on the cell phone, they are not focusing on what is going on around them, according to Nasar. The possibility of crime is not the only problem.

In a separate study, Nasar and his colleagues found that 48 per cent of cell phone users crossed a busy road in front of approaching cars, compared to only 25 per cent of those not using phones.

"We know that cell phones pose a hazard for people when they're driving, but pedestrians may also be at risk if they are not careful," he said.

Making next popular cellphone can be study in psychology

Executives and industry analysts say it has become more important than ever to understand the psyche of consumers and why they pick one phone over another.

[via the IHT]

Japanese children and cell phone obsession

Young Japanese people are evolving a new lifestyle for the 21st century based on the cellphones that few are now able to live without. [via the AFP]

"By the time they get to high school, 96 percent of Japanese students use cellphones. They are using their phones to read books, listen to music, chat with friends and surf the Internet -- an average of 124 minutes a day for high school girls and 92 minutes for boys.

Hideki Nakagawa, a sociology professor at Nihon University in Tokyo, said cellphones have become "an obsession" for youngsters.

"They feel insecure without cellphones, just the way sales people do without their name cards," he said.

... Another survey by professor Tetsuro Saito found that students can also use their cellphones as an emotional crutch, and the more problems they have at home, the more dependent they seem to become on their phones."

iPhone Users Make More Text Errors

A study by User Centric compared the texting experiences of iPhone owners and non-owners across devices:

"When compared to hard-key QWERTY phone owners using their personal phones, iPhone owners’ rate of text entry on the iPhone was equally rapid. However, iPhone owners made more errors during text entry and also left significantly more errors in the completed messages."

[via 160characters.org]

How Teens Text

Ypulse reports on new survey on how teens are using texting:

-- Teens and young adults use text messaging more than any other demographic. People ages 13-24 send and receive the most - more than 50 messages per week - while half of all survey respondents use text messaging at least once a week

-- 54 percent of 13-34 year olds use SMS for social networking

-- 44 percent of 13-34 year olds said they use text messaging for flirting or dating

-- 10 percent of 13-34 year olds said they have broken up with a boy or girl friend using text messaging.

SMS is bearer of bad news

The social impact of text messaging is the subject of renewed concerns as SMS use stretches to notifying someone of a death in the family, wedding RSVPs, breaking up with long-term partners and even quitting a job. News.com.au reports.

"Experts say the text-messaging generation is fast becoming socially inept as it hides from "normal communication".

SMS is often regarded as quicker and easier than an email or phone call.

But some researchers suggest the chronic use of texting has sociological dangers and is creating a generation with reduced social confidence.

Mark McCrindle, whose research agency specialises in social trends, says texting has created a generation increasingly reliant on non-contact communication.

... Shari Walsh, from the Queensland University of Technology's School of Psychology and Counselling, has researched the use of mobile phones among people aged 16-24 for the past three years and says texting can enhance social behaviour.

"There is some research to show that texting is used as an aid to maintaining and forming relationships," Ms Walsh said."

Travelers leave mobiles behind

Travelers want to go green and stay clean in the next year -- and they don't want mobile phones disturbing their peace, according to an annual survey of travel trends, reports Reuters.

"TripAdvisor, a travel Web site, surveyed more than 2,500 travelers globally, finding the top trends were concerns about germs, the growth of green tourism, and opposition to mobile phone use on planes."

No mobile means poverty, say children

Almost half of children in some parts of Britain think that not having a mobile phone means a child is poor, according to a poll commissioned by Dare to Care, a new volunteering campaign aimed at tackling child poverty.

[via SMS Text News]

Mobile phones killing written word in Japan

Dictionaries are giving way to cellphones when it comes to checking kanji, according to a survey by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, reports asahi.com.

The survey found nearly 80 percent of people in their 20s turn to cellphones more frequently than to print, electronic or online dictionaries when they do not know how to write Chinese characters.

... "For young people, kanji is something they type (from the cellphone pad or the personal computer keyboard) rather than write with their hands," said author Tatsuro Dekune. "The ability to write correct kanji may be considered inconsequential someday."

[via Tech.co.uk]

Study: Walking and Talking in Step (yawn)

Of all the studies on cell phones, this one seems the most, well, uninteresting. New Scientist reports on the walking and talking in step study, which can "enrich the (mobile) users experience"

"When was the last time you walked down the street talking on your cellphone to another person doing the same somewhere else? You may have been walking in step, for around 30 per cent of the time, according to preliminary research.

The authors of the paper were actually trying to make this synchronisation possible over the phone to see if it enriched the users' experience. They devised a way to transmit the jolting of a caller's footsteps so that the other person felt them through their phone's vibrate function.

But in tests, 10 pairs of people trying the system were, on average, most synchronised when they were having an interactive conversation, and couldn't feel the other's steps. For 29 per cent of the time, their steps were in time, according to the researchers' definition.

Feeling the pounding of the other person's feet via the cellphones did improve how synchronised a pair's steps were when they were having a scripted conversation, or describing images down the line, though.

... The study was carried out by computer scientists Roderick Murray-Smith from the University of Glasgow and Bojan Musizza from the Institut Jozef Stefan in Slovenia; along with psychologists Simon Garrod and Melissa Jackson, both also at Glasgow, and Andrew Ramsay from the Hamilton Institute, Ireland."

Can't Sleep? Turn Off the Cellphone!

A good night's sleep is becoming ever more elusive for the average American — and it's a problem that plagues us at all ages, from infancy to adulthood. Time magazine reports.

Now three new papers in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep tackle the question of sleeplessness: two studies illuminate the reasons why teens and adults don't sleep enough. With teens, a major culprit is cellphone use; with adults, it's work. Meanwhile, a third study of young children reveals that sleep deprivation in early life may lead to future behavioral and cognitive problems.

Links to other technology-causes-sleep deprivation related studies.

Gadgets Causing 'Epidemic of Shyness'

The introduction of e-mail, text messaging and iPods is causing a worldwide epidemic of shyness. The Daily Telegraph reports via The Raw Feed.

"Psychologist, Harvard Business School researcher and etiquette columnist Robin Abrahams says societies have become filled with shrinking violets.

"In the past, only about 40 per cent of people reported being shy in social situations,'' Ms Abrahams said. "It's now a significant problem affecting about half.''

Ms Abrahams, visiting Tasmania as the University of Tasmania's guest for National Science Week, said social shyness was most prevalent in Japan and least prevalent in Israel.

"Society is changing so rapidly it's becoming difficult to navigate. There's no longer a set of rules for appropriate behaviour,'' she said.

"At the same time, technology is enabling us to opt out of difficult situations and causing people to become more insular. "

EU study reveals children's online and mobile habits

Europe's children are internet and mobile savvy and are well aware of the possible risks, according to a new survey by the European Commission, reports IT Week.

"The latest Eurobarometer survey (PDF) interviewed children aged 9-10 and 12-14 across all 27 EU member states, and in Norway and Iceland.

The researchers found remarkable homogeneity in internet and mobile usage from country to country, but greater variation among age group and gender.

All age groups and genders surveyed use the internet to help with homework, but mostly they use it for online games and recreational surfing. They also use the internet and their mobiles to communicate with friends, but rarely with strangers.

... They are well aware of the problems of viruses, hackers, paedophiles and online scams, and most claim that threatening text messages are no different to any other form of bullying and admit to being victims and perpetrators.

SMS is seen as children's most private medium. As one 14 year-old summarised: "You phone your parents, but you text your friends."

For SMS, the days are numbered

The days of SMS are numbered now that mobile email access is becoming a commodity, research firm Gartner says, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Long the preserve of businessmen in power suits, mobile email is about to hit the masses with one in five email users accessing their accounts wirelessly by 2010, according to Gartner.

... Today there are less than 20 million wireless email users worldwide, but this will grow to 350 million, or 20 per cent of all email accounts, by 2010, Monica Blasso, the firm's research vice-president said.

"Once email becomes available more or less free of charge by default on your mobile handset, people will gravitate to that rather than just continuing to use SMS," Robin Simpson, mobile and wireless research director at Gartner Australasia said."

Young keep it simple in high-tech world: survey

While young people embrace the Web with real or virtual friends and their cell phone is never far away, relatively few like technology and those that do tend to be in Brazil, India and China, according to a survey. Reuters reports.

"Only a handful think of technology as a concept, and just 16 percent use terms like "social networking," said two combined surveys covering 8- to 24-year-olds published on Tuesday by Microsoft and Viacom units MTV Networks and Nickelodeon.

Young people don't see "tech" as a separate entity - it's an organic part of their lives," said Andrew Davidson, vice president of MTV's VBS International Insight unit.

"Talking to them about the role of technology in their lifestyle would be like talking to kids in the 1980s about the role the park swing or the telephone played in their social lives -- it's invisible."

The surveys involved 18,000 young people in 16 countries including the UK, U.S., China, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

... The surveyors found the average Chinese computer user has 37 online friends they have never met, Indian youth are most likely to see cell phones as a status symbol, while one-in-three UK and U.S. teenagers say they cannot live without games consoles."