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August 2, 2004
Mimi Ito on Mobile devices and presence
Posted by Clay Shirky
Mimi Ito wrote an interesting introduction to the ways mobile devices change urban gatherings, including two themes especially near and dear to my heart. First, the ways coordination replaces planning:
Mobile phones have revolutionized the experience of arranging meetings in urban space. In the past, landmarks and pre-arranged times were the points that coordinated action and convergence in urban space. People would decide on a particular place and time to meet, and converge at that time and place. I recall hours spent at landmarks such as Hachiko Square in Shibuya or Roppongi crossing, making occasional forays to a payphone to check for messages at home or at a friend’s home. Now teens and twenty-somethings generally do not set a fixed time and place for a meeting. Rather, they initially agree on a general time and place (Shibuya, Saturday late afternoon), and exchange approximately 5 to 15 messages that progressively narrow in on a precise time and place, two or more points eventually converging in a coordinated dance through the urban jungle. As the meeting time nears, contact via messaging and voice becomes more concentrated, eventually culminating in face-to-face contact.
and then the way that mediated and unmediated conversations can now take place among a group at the same time:
In other cases, mobile messages are used to contact a recipient just out of visual range or unavailable for voice contact. Messaging during class or lectures gets around the limitations on private voice contact. “Hey, look. The teacher buttoned his shirt wrong.” “This class sucks.” Another example from one of our informants was when she was standing in a long line for a bus and saw her friend near the front of the line. She sent her a message to look behind her so that she could see her and wave. In other cases, students have described how they will message their friends upon entering a large lecture hall to ask where they are sitting.
Comments (2)
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1. Donna on August 2, 2004 8:56 PM writes...
Excellent. These new network devices will efficiently reduce unwanted levels of chance and chaos in gatherings.
Before mobile devices, when entering a large lecture hall, we would often end up sitting next to strangers, and these interactions with strangers have the potential to produce unwanted interactions. In American schools, social cliques as represented in lecture hall seating have mostly been *visibly* enabled by such indicators as race - black students would sit with black students, etc. - but now with mobile devices, this crude and atavistic visual/ethnic reliance can be fine-tuned - I no longer have to sit next to a *random* person of my race or social group, but a carefully targeted person. GPS extensions to mobile devices that operate at the level of lecture hall seating would be terrific, offering the potential to break down all barriers to smoothly operating interaction.
Similarly, in the past, coordinating meetings at a particular landmark or public place produced similar unwanted interactions - if the other people attending the meeting were absent or late you would be subject to conversations with whomever else happened to be there, and since the earth is packed with people who are, let's say, not up to our level, these situations often lack value.
These devices produce a social situation where you are more and more able to know who exactly you're dealing with most of the time, and filter out many of the weeds to the social garden. Or to put it another way, let's avoid the potholes on the information highway!
Permalink to Comment2. Tim on August 3, 2004 12:20 AM writes...
The first quote really interests me. My friends that have really embraced mobile technology are very difficult to make plans with these days. I have no cell phone so when they make plans for "the afternoon" I have to remind them I need a specific time, which seems to annoy them.
I can see how this technology is making things different, but more efficient? For me it just means that if I plan something with one of my "mobile" friends, I have to leave the whole day open because the plan will change several times. Rarely is it convenient to run another errand while I wait, and I end up just wasting that time. It seems like it's just a way for people to be less accountable.
I know that makes me sound old and rigid to not embrace the new way, but new technology doesn't necessarily change things for the better. I'm hoping the technology and our interaction with it will mature.
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