Nouveau networks:
1 Sep 2007
That the world is mobile is no real news. These bluddy phones are everywhere. The device reserved for 1980s yuppies has since become a near essential, ubiquitous piece of hardware for contemporary living, and plaything of the young.
And things are not going to stop there. No way. Your mobile will become your camera, music player, TV, web browser, games console, kitchen sink…. As the new Nokia N95 proclaims, it’s what computers (not phones) have become.
This is not all good news, of course. Leaving aside (probably overstated) health fears associated with radiation and the (certainly serious) environmental consequences of discarded phones, there are a host of problems associated with the rise of the mobile.
Cameras on phones provide their own problems. The ‘happy slapping’ phenomena, wherein violent acts are recorded and shared with friends or distributed on the internet, has generated a sense of menace about the phone camera.
Privacy is at risk when any embarrassing or intimate moment can end up on Youtube. Press reports of these (often reprehensible) activities lead to ‘moral panics’ that Gerard Goggin of the University of Sydney compares to similar negative representations of apparently unruly and threatening teens.
Attempts at curtailing their influence have met with limited success. Mobiles are entrenched in most aspects of our working and social lives. Now they are part of family life, and are part of a wider transformation of contemporary childhood.
Most Australian high school students now
use a mobile and some already own more than one. But how young is too young to be on the mobile?Younger than you might think. Handset manufacturers and telecommunications service providers are actively marketing phones for children between the age of six and ten. Most are designed with cautious parents in mind. Calls are permitted only to an approved list of contacts. There are hot buttons to parents and emergency numbers. GPS tracking is a popular feature, enabling parents to locate their children’s phone at the press of a button. The mobile is now a parenting tool.
Misa Matsuda, of Chuo University in Tokyo, recently reported that many young children in Japan get their first mobile phone in the middle or later years of elementary school – the rationale being that it enables children to stay in touch with their parents, especially Mum.
In a phenomena Matsuda refers to as “mum in your pocket,” at the press of a button, mum is on hand to seek permission or advice from, to make or change arrangements or simply be there to answer trivial calls. “Mum, where are my red socks?” and so on. Reverse the call for Matsuda’s other noticeable phenomena: “remote-control mothering.” Unable to spend time together, busy parents are monitoring their busy children via the mobile.
What’s next for mobile kids? Some look to places like Japan and South Korea, observing popular trends like mobile TV and internet browsing among the young. Governments there are caught between actively encouraging information and communication technology development, citing economic benefits, and allaying the fears of wary parents by emphasising the capacity for mobiles to keep a constant watch over their young ones.
Schools and universities, UTS included, are examining how mobile information communications technologies will be transforming education. Yet tensions remain – mobiles are regarded as a disturbance in the classroom and the lecture hall (surely no surprises there).
The next stage will be possibly the move from mobile to ubiquitous communications. Our phones, laptops and desktops will be connected not only to each other, but also to our televisions, cars, heating units, even inside our own bodies. Pacemakers will report irregularities to doctors and patients. Luggage will tell owners when it is lost. Fridges will re-stock when the milk runs out.
This technological utopian vision has a dark side. As Katherine Hayles of UCLA recently told a conference on ubiquitous media, when radio frequency identification devices become small enough to be breathed in like dust or hidden in clothes, tracking where we are and who we are with becomes a snitch. The ubiquitous surveillance society of films like Minority Report and Total Recall is moving from science fiction to science fact.
Your phone will watch over you. And your kids.
Damien Spry’s research, under the supervision of Professor Stephanie Donald, compares policy responses to the impact of mobile phones on children’s lives in Australia and Japan. He is an Australian Postgraduate Industry Award holder funded by the Australian Research Council as part of a Linkage Project with the NSW Commission for Children and Young People. This project focuses on the social and economic impact of mobile phones on children and young people’s lives in NSW.
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