‘Playful Identities’ research blog

A recent ethnographic study done in France says young people have a different relation with their phone than most adults. Or rather, through their mobile phone young people relate to their peers, whereas for most adults the mobile phone is a very personal and private item.

The researchers also looked at the practice of mobile sharing:

“There is a growing trend of sharing with teenagers. Phones are more and more objects that circulate within a group, in particular when they have lost their own phone, when it is broken or stolen. The Gripic researchers were surprised to find that a fair number of teenagers didn’t even have their own mobile phone, but just a “replacement mobile”: an object that was ephemeral, non-sacred, cheap and aimed at circulation. The only thing that matters is that it works.” [...]

“In fact, for adults the mobile is a hyper-personal device, an intimate black box with data that absolutely need to be protected. For teenagers on the other hand, the mobile is often as little confidential and intimate as their blogs. They are instead identity and exhibition spaces of oneself, with “museum galleries” of photos, ringtones, videos, and music to share with a community of peers: archiving makes only sense if it can be shared.”

Gripic sees teenager usage of the mobile no longer as “emblematic of an individualistic society”, but rather as “a reflection of collective and collaborative behaviours”.

(English translation from Putting People First)

This supports the idea of gift exchange through the mobile phone, written about by amongst others Taylor & Harper (and by me).

Another interesting finding is that young people learn to use the phone by experimenting, and that they deal with glitches in a “non-dramatic” way.

(Via Small Surfaces)

[I wrote this blogpost earlier for The Mobile City]

The BBC reports that Cubans get access to mobile phones, as Raul Castro lifts the ban on possessing them:

Cubans are to be allowed unrestricted access to mobile phones for the first time, in the latest reform announced under new President Raul Castro.

…

Some Cubans already own mobile phones, but they have had to acquire them via a third party, often foreigners.

Cuba’s rate of cell phone usage remains among the lowest in Latin America.

Now Cubans will be able to subscribe to pre-paid mobile services under their own names, instead of going through foreigners or in some cases their work places.

However, the new service must be paid for in foreign currency, which will restrict access to wealthier Cubans.

What strikes me is not only that one of the countries with the most restrictive political regimes and lowest mobile phone penetration percentages is lifting the ban. More interesting even is the way this is presented in various media as almost inevitably leading to huge social change. This news item is phrased in terms like reform (BBC), technological catch-up (Engadget), the new Cuba; Raul Castro is revolutionizing his brother’s island; change (Wired) [my emphasis]. Perhaps the strongest phrase I found on MobileCrunch: “The communist dominos are falling as the dictatorship of the proletariat realizes it can’t stand up against the relentless momentum of the mobile phone.” Here, the mobile phone is imagined almost as a natural force, logically leading to political reform, freedom and democracy.

This reminds me of Tim Cresswell’s keynote speech in which he showed how the term ‘mobility’ is always infused with meanings and values. In this case it seems the mobile phone becomes a symbol for reform, social change, modernity, political opening and transparency. I really feel his point about the value-laden aspects of ‘mobility’ (and consequently also ‘mobile technologies’) is extremely important for all working in the field of mobile technologies. The apprehension Tim voiced in workshop 2 towards the term “mobility paradigm” perhaps also stems from the realization that a paradigm - with enough people ‘in’ it - inevitably means basic concepts (like ‘mobile’) are accepted as validation and legitimization in themselves for working on them. And yes, we too realize that “The Mobile City” has exactly this rhetorical power: a whole new view on, and approach to the city, paradoxically both inevitable as a future image and simply here & now as an empirical fact.

I got this pic a little while ago from a colleague (thanks Tina!). I think it’s very funny.

(source appears to be PersianHub.org).

Sad as it is, the Joran van der Sloot and Natalee Holloway case has a funny side to it. And the mobile phone plays a big role in it. More than half of the Dutch population watched the program by Peter R. de Vries on Sunday the 3rd of Februari 2008 about the confessions Joran van der Sloot made in front of hidden cameras. Shortly after the broadcast, SMS messages started circulating:

‘Lig hier op het strand met een wijf te ketsen maar in één keer deed ze niks meer! Kan je ff komen met een boot, een echte vriend doet dat toch? Mag jij mijn nieuwe gympen!’

which translates into something like:

I am on the beach humping this chick, all of a sudden she stops moving! Can you come over with a boat, a real friend would do such a thing? You can have my new sneakers!

Free newspaper De Pers quotes this joke from a barkeeper from The Hague. Another free newspaper Metro quotes the exact same joke from young people in Amsterdam. In trying to come up with a snappy answer, people refer in a similar vein to the show everybody has seen:

Sorry, geen tijd, zit op Aruba. Bel anders Daury ff.

(Sorry, no time, I am on Aruba. Call Daury.)

According to De Pers, one of the largest operators in the Netherlands Vodafone reports a remarkable increase in text messages after the Peter R. de Vries show.

Interestingly, broadcast mass media content (which still is able to reach the largest number of people) seeps into ‘narrowcast’ communication media like the mobile phone. Yet the mobile phone too is used in a chain-like broadcast medium. People send a message like this on to multiple other people.

Also, the mobile phone has become part of the repertoire of media people have to express themselves in a joking way. It has typical connotations of being non-serious and playful (especially amongst young people).

[Interesting by the way that Wikipedia.org automatically forwards the entry "Joran van der Sloot" to "Natalee Holloway"... What politics are behind that choice?]

sources: depers.nl and metronieuws.nl (date: Feb. 7 2008)

picture: depers.nl

This is Ramon. I met him at my favorite soto ayam breakfast spot at Jl. Ki Mangun Sarkoro. He has a very special job. He drives around on his scooter to collect cut hair from barbershops and deliver it to salons, where it is used for weaves and extensions. He works for a boss. When he finds many good long pieces of hair, he gets a bigger wage. Sometimes he gets nothing because there is no good hair. With a proud smile, Ramon says many celebrities you see on TV have extensions which he delivered.

On his scooter, Ramon covers all of Jakarta. He even goes to neighboring towns like Bekasi, Tangerang and Bogor (1 1/2 hours). Ramon regularly uses the handphone to communicate whether he has found any new hair, where he has to drop off, or where he can pick up. In easy times he gets about 3 calls every week. In busy times everyday.

Ramon owns his handphone since 2 years. It is not really advanced, he admits, but it does have a handsfree/audio set, and a camera. Ramon makes a lot of snapshots of all the special places he visits. He prints them out and puts them on his wall, for “kebanggaan sendiri” (personal pride). With a broad weave of the arm Ramon explains he has whole wall full of pictures. He feels he has become a kind of artist since he has got a handphone.

One of the most interesting and dynamic discussions in Indonesia is how to combine Islam with modernity. It is a complicated debate, which would merit a study on its own… It does however influence my research about the mobile phone, Indonesian modernity and identities.

New technologies like the mobile phone lead to new discussions:

from the {belajar-islam} [= "study Islam"] mailinglist: http://www.mail-archive.com/belajar-islam@yahoogroups.com/msg00092.html

Antoniobandalem wonders whether muslims are allowed to use products that are made by non-muslims (kafir), such as the handphone. He gets a reply from Chandraleka, an independent IT writer, who says something like (freely translated & abbreviated):

20 May 2006

“Wah! Don’t be too extreme! As long as the product itself is halal, it doesn’t matter who produces it. Extreme ideas like these are caused by ignorance about Islam. This idea would make modern life nearly impossible: you cannot drive a car, cannot use a computer, cannot use light bulbs, cannot use a mobile phone… Muslims are allowed to use ‘kafir’ products, thank God! It makes life much easier!”

When I was in Roxy Mas the other day, I got a ringtone from this guy, an antique Indonesian song called “Si Jantung Hati” (= something like “Lady’s Love”).

In the background the Nokia service centre where you have to draw a number - how orderly!

This really unclear picture is from Telset Magazine (edisi 74 July 2007, p.16), one of the many handphone magazines in Indonesia. It shows a queue of thousands of people waiting in front of the Ballroom Hotel Grand Melia in Jakarta on 13 June 2007. What are they waiting for? Is Michael Jackson making an appearance in Jakarta? Is someone giving away free stuff? Nope, these people are awaiting the launch of the new Nokia E90 Communicator. Indonesia is the first country in the world where this device was launched. This device really harbours all the functions that a mobile device nowadays possibly can have aboard. About 1100 invitees could buy the phone on the spot for around 11.000.000 Rp (almost € 900).
In an editorial, Magazine Telset does not fail to notice how ironic it is that so many people are queuing up for a device which costs 1 1/2 times the average Indonesian yearly income. In this country, thousands of people voluntary queue up for hours to be the first to have the E90, while still at this time many more people involuntarily queue up each day to get cooking oil. According to Telset editor, it can happen here because people feel it is prestigious (gengsi) to have such a device, which in turn increases the tendency to see handphones like this Communicator as a symbol of status and success.

Yesterday I visited Roxy Mas in the Cideng neighborhood just west of central Jakarta. According to most people Roxy Mas and neigboring Roxy Square is the main handphone center in Jakarta. The building itself does not look very ’prestigious’ or gengsi I am already adopting local terminology here ;).
Roxy Mas has 5 stories. The upper one is mostly a food court. Downstairs there are also some other businesses (clothing, books). The rest is almost completely filled with handphone shops of the following kinds (roughly in descending order of presence):

- Shops selling handphones, both new or bekas (second).
- Shops specialized in selling SIM cards of various telcom operators, both GSM and CDMA (and nomor cantik (beautiful numbers), which are more expensive) as well as pulsa (credit).
- Shops selling all kinds of accessoires (colored casings, phone holders, danglers).
- Repair shops (also doing other services like unlocking, etc.).
- Official (repair) centres of the major brands (Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola).
- Content providers: mainly ringtones. These are basically booths with a computer inside and a guy or girl next to it. He has a mp3 catalogue. For 5000 RP (€ 0,40) per song, he/she will transfer an mp3 of choice to your phone via a data cable, via memory reader, or if even that doesn’t work via bluetooth.

Most of the workers in Roxy Mas are young: between 16 - 25. Some shop owners are older. The majority is female. Also quite a lot of shop owners from Chinese descent. Visitors - overwhelmingly young too - were mostly wandering around together with a friend. It wasn’t particularly busy, maybe I have to get back on a weekend day when most people are free and go shopping for fun. One of the shops I visited looked just like a supermarket.

Lucky capture while drinking coffee in a downstairs coffee bar in Mall Ambassador. People at all tables seemed very engaged in their mobile media, yet people at two of the three tables where also very much communicating with others physically there. The dichotomous view of “absent presence” (being somewhere else than one’s physical place through the use of media) appears not so rigid in this situation. Here & elsewhere may be combined without any problems.