Mobile-phone culture

The Apparatgeist calls


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Muchiri Esq

An interesting reading about cellular phones. But I feel like the author is missing a lot by not finding out how unprecedented is the use of these phones (Called Munguriu in Kikuyu)in Africa, particularly in Kenya. Ever heard of Mpesa? Its a text based way of sending money, its revolutionary. We are not talking smart phones here!


I have to disagree with Roussillon. What he calls language is merely terminology. Each field carries its own terminology. One cannot master a trade or a skill before assimilating its terminology.

The simplification of language, not terminology, that we are witnessing in the current context of the mobile revolution is in fact the result of wanting to get straigth to the point impersonally, without getting side-tracked or losing face.

The countless individuals who appear to have inadequate language skills are probably masters in the terminology of their respective trades - or they're high school students who want to look cool.

If they are high school students, then they are engaging in a socially driven sublanguage whose sole purpose is to ensure that the teen who participates in this subculture does not lose face before his peers.

Perhaps honour and prestige need more coverage as communications drivers.

Kristina Brooker1

Why isn't the cheapest life possible available to me, the minimum autonomous space (the nano home), an appropriate number of necessities. I think I have deserved it, I follow non fail rules for the care of others. Why can't I have the cheapest life possible.

Can a phone possibily be able to allocate me the cheapest life possible, I want the environment to reward my efforts -I want to grow more pretty flowers than most people observe.


In this entire series of interesting ideas, none of us have pointed out the impact of radiation on the human brain, thanks to over usage of mobile phones. As we become prisoners of mobile phone culture, the human brain is increasingly getting exposed to radiation which, arguably, is adversely impacting the same.

Are we going to kill our brains, the one differentiator man has over others, to fill the corpus of telephone service providers.


Bin fan of mobile business. The mobile stuff, PCs, cellphone should replace all the fix ones. Especially, the mobile phones. With iPhone, I could join a meeting without my computer, networking with people easily, enjoying multimedia freely. Just the one.

I do think the phone might replace the computer or converge with computer as some kind of personal devices which deal with multiple task, better effectiveness. Nokia makes its effort --- N97, a newly launched product.


I've met a stange thing, once my US customer came to China, and his MOTO is out of power when he forgot to bring a charger, so I said it's OK, I can buy you a omnipotent charger(the kind of charger suitable for all cell phones)

To my surprise, he never saw a omnipotent charger before.

If it's true that omnipotent charger hasn't been born in USA, then aren't chinese people too brilliant?


Teo V:

Thank you for you well considered response. Your argument only serves to reinforce my points. The quality of the message is indeed very critical to the process of communication skills development. Reading, writing and speaking are skills that must be learnt and practiced just like any other. I am also a teacher and have taught across all levels from primary to tertiary levels. I am convinced that we risk the reduction in the overall quality of human communication as a result of this new media. I am not anti technology, nor do I have a naïve view of the way people were in the past. In the Nineteenth Century many people could not read or write, it is therefore not surprising to find that those who could did it well.

The worry is that media which is by its nature immediate, highly visual and somewhat restrictive in its ability to engage the more complex and sophisticated levels of our minds is detrimental to our communicative ability. While I agree that if people are encouraged to read, write and speak their overall communication skills will be OK, but the medium is still the message as McLuhan pointed out all those years ago. Take Television for example. When it first came out it was hailed as a great hope for education. There were claims that it would bring more knowledge to people as it could engage all the senses and teach things that might otherwise not be accessed. This has not really been the case. Too often the TV is a mindless soma for the masses that teaches little and deals in cheap game or reality shows where we can see ordinary people being ordinary people.

The new media is now the arena of the masses with Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and other consumer generated content that is huge in terms of total information availability, but poor in terms of its quality and purpose. It is OK for those who understand how to sift through this trash to find the value, but they will only do so if they have been provided with a decent education and the ability to know what they don’t know in order to develop a sense of discrimination.

No Mist

much of the studies about 'mobile behavior' is flash in the pan. technology is changing so rapidly that these studies would be outdated even before they are thoroughly reviewed.

with imminent convergence of mobile + camera + mp3-player + video-player + computer + cable-TV + ebook-reader + my goat .... it is time we do studies about human behavior vis a vis future technology rather that present or past ones.

Teo V


There is no risk in disagreeing! Disagreement is healthy for developing those communication skills that we are talking about! And we clearly disagree.

I am going to replu by pointing to the research of Dr. Stephen Krashen concerning language acquisition and in particular the input hypothesis. The input hypothesis basically being that we learn language best through input and not through output. Thus, we would learn to communicate better by reading and listening to good communicators. So, it doesn't matter so much if people today are texting and e-mailing (as forms of output), just so long as they are also exposed to good quality communication through lectures, conversation or written books/essays.

If technology is going to hurt our ability to communicate in deeper ways, I think this will result not from text messaging and e-mailing, but from the way that television, facebook, and videogames can be time drains -- they eat up time that could be used in reading. Or as you mentioned, they eliminate the kind of quality conversations that may have once been held at a dinner table.

A person who loves to read but communicates with his friends through texts and e-mails will likely still develop excellent communication skills as long as they have healthy input of quality language. I believe that *reading* is truly the key to maintaining rich communication, and not by setting ourselves up in a losing battle against the new efficient communication technologies.

Lastly, I would point out that the internet allows me to maintain my communication levels by offering me news by publications such as the Economist, discussion forums like this one, and free online lectures by some of the best minds in the world.

Back in the good ol' days of letter writing, though some families sat around and discussed politics and philosophy, a lot of them just talked about crops, religion, and gossip. Let's not idealize an age that never was. In history classes and books, they are going to show you the most important pieces of writing, not the ones that are superficial or simple. And as for today, I think it would be harder than you might think to find many kids above the age of about 13 that are "incapable of putting more than a few basic sentences together."

I am a middle school foreign language teacher and work with urban teens from low socioeconomic backgrounds. And I've been amazed at some of the language that they can produce in the forms of stories, poetry and songs that they write. Many of them can talk in depth about the challenges that face them and what they hope for in the future. Many of them are able to switch back and forth between the dialect that they use with their friends (which includes all kinds of internet shorthand that I don't understand) and standard English.

I guess when it comes down to it, I think the key is not getting kids to stop texting or e-mailing and such, but to get them reading and reading good literature. Reading is still golden in education, and I believe is the key to good communication even in this new age of communication.


Teo V;

At the risk of disagreeing with you, I would direct you to research that is being undertaken into the effect that different types of media has on the data processing capabilities of people. When reading text on a normal paper-based page the mind processes information quite differently to that found in computer-based digital screens. Apparently the mind takes more time to digest the contents of the paper-based media and researchers believe that this serves to generate a deeper understanding and more opportunities for in-depth reflection. By contrast, the digital media results in faster, more superficial data processing. When multimedia is involved, people use visual cues to interpret data rather than using their imaginations to conjure up the images desired by the author.

The spread of this new media may not have any negative consequences but some researchers fear that it is slowly eroding the ability of humans to undertake in-depth analytical thinking. I am not sure what the long term consequences will be, however, I direct you to the letters of the ordinary people written in the Nineteenth Century. As a former student of History I recall reading these from the original diaries and letters written by early settlers in Australia back to family in the United Kingdom. Also the letters of ordinary soldiers during the American Civil War to their families tells a similar story. What is striking about this correspondence is the quality of the language. People wrote in complex, sophisticated sentences and displayed a high quality of thought and communicative ability. I believe that a similar level of communication was found at the inter-personal level when people had more time to talk to each other.

Alas, today we find many people incapable of putting more than a few basic sentences together. This is potentially very important because it is the ability to engage in complex communications that defines us as a species. The more language that a person has, the more developed their mind is. Without complex and sophisticated language skills people are effectively trapped in a rather limited world that cannot open up the mind to its full opportunities for creative development.


I will call the ambulance,and need not be worried, by then, every qualified surgeon would have had done a course called "mobile technology" in their medical school.


So, I'm walking around, one day, with my 'phone implanted in the side of my head.

For the umpteenth time, I get a call from a tele-marketer, trying to sell me something that I don't want.

In exasperation, I bash my head against the side of a building, and fall down in front of you.

Who you gonna call ?


@ Der Perfesser wrote: Jan 1st 2010 12:50 GMT

“I am waiting for the next major development, long overdue - cheap satellite phones.” ?

Connectivity is not the issue here as most cellular phone networks offer seamless interconnection already.

How many users are calling from north or south poles or out from boondoggle places? That’s why Iridium and Globalstar pretty much failed as commercial undertakings (both being bankrupt before).

As things stand now and even as technology becomes cheaper, the satellite bandwidth available is finite and will not be cheaper. Satellite phones and satellite SMS are more suitable for value added business and special applications only.

It’s the contents and applications that mattered in cell phone, and the Economist article is right about that.

Chris S

I have to disagree with Der Perfesser and agree with aidan clarke- using the internet via ground based towers will be the next revolution on the cell phone front. I can only imagine having the network operators reduced to "pipes" and not being able to charge absurd prices for talk time and other "premium" services. Quite simply, the internet could easily be the only thing you need for your handset. This will in turn lead, in time, to the ubiquitous internet connection- always on, always there, no matter where you're at. Whoever can deliver this to the public is going to be rich in a very short time.


You are what you eat? Not any more than: You are what you call (via a cell phone)


I've been an avid user of computers since the Radio Shack Model I entered the market. The facination only deepens as miniturization progresses. There is one amusing potential flaw in marketing some newer gadgets. For example, in the spec sheets and advertising of the new Verizon Android Smartphones there is no mention of the presumed ability or mechanics of the gadgets to make or receive a telephone call. Through all of my almost annual "apparatus" evolutions I have retained my now aged flip-phone (which replaced my original "brick") and number just in case some real work interfers with my playtime.


How about the cellphone revolution currently occurring across the African continent; people are simply making the big leap to cellphones and avoiding landlines.New uses such as money transfer example 'Mpesa' in Kenya, others are accessing Facebook accounts via their cellphone.
Excellent article.

Teo V

Rousillon, I think you are mistaken as far as the direction that technology is taking communication. The fact that a means of communication is difficult does not implicitly make it superior, and neither does easier communication make it inferior.

Frankly, I think technology allows us to "cut the bullshit." More words does not mean better communication. In a modern text message, the sender gets right to the point and says what he needs to say. I'm a very wordy person and texts require me to be more efficient and clear in my communication.

Also, let's remember that these technologies allow us to so freely and frequently exchange information, that the information doesn't need to be as careful in order to be effective. Back when it would take at least a few days for a letter to arrive by post, people needed to make sure that everything they said was thorough and clear, to ensure that no more information would be needed for the letter to be understood. Today, when I send an e-mail, I know that if something is unclear, I can get a call or an e-mail back instantly to request clarification.

When you say that advancement in communicative ability "leads to a general run down of the overall communicative ability of society," I must disagree. It simply makes effective communication easier for everyone. Communication doesn't have to be as hard as it once was.

When universities began to abandon Latin and began lecturing in English, French, Spanish, etc., I believe that many made the same kinds of claims that you are making now. English, for example, was not a challenging enough language to be used to express proper academic thought. But I think we have found the opposite, the use of "easier" language in universities has made higher education and its findings more accessible to more people.

I think that just as a move from Latin to English was progress and not the end of effective communication, I believe that technological advancement in communication is allowing more of us to communicate even more frequently and effectively and will continue to do so in the future.

aidan clarke

Perfesser, space is very far away. Why send data all the way up there and all the way back (with all the accompanying technical difficulties) when you can just make it take short hops from place to place to place through and interconnected web of connections?


In the 1967 film, The President’s Analyst staring James Coburn, the Bell Telephone Company was secretly plotting to implant computer chips in everyone’s head in order to spy on them and eventually take control of the world by having everyone love them. This now seems to be approaching a reality according to this article. What is ignored is the work of Marshall McLuhan from his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. According to McLuhan media can be classified into hot and cool types depending on the level of engagement or attention that is required in order to effectively use it. The media of the mid-1960s was divided into print, film, TV and radio, but today’s smart mobile technology has seen a convergence of all these media onto a single device. What will be important is what people are actually doing with these devices. While some may use them for complex communications it is more likely that most people will simply play with them as toys and communicate in the simplest ways. Compared with the challenge of having to sit down and write a letter with a pen, a mobile phone call, email, text or twitter message is generally basic, poorly considered and leads to a general run down of the overall communicative ability of society.



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