Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Re-placement of Social Contact

Abstract

9.1 Introduction The mobile phone is often perceived as an emblematic technology of space–time compression, touted as a tool for anytime, anywhere connec-tivity. Discussions of young people's mobile phone use, in particular, often stress the liberatory effects of mobile media, and how it enables young people to escape the demands of existing social structures and parental surveillance. This chapter argues that the mobile phone can indeed enable communication that crosses prior social boundaries, but this does not necessarily mean that the devices erode the integrity of existing places or social identities. While Japanese youth actively use mobile phones to overcome limitations inherent in their weak social status, their usage is highly deferential to institutions of home and school and the integrity of existing places. Taking up the case of how Japanese teens' mobile phone use is structured by the power geometries of place, this chapter argues that characteristics of mobile phones and mobile communication are not inherent in the device, but are deter-mined by social and cultural context and power relations. After first presenting the methodological and conceptual framework for this chapter, I present ethnographic material in relation to the power dynam-ics and regulation of different kinds of places: the private space of the home, the classroom, the public spaces of the street and public trans-portation, and the virtual space of peer connectivity enabled by mobile communications. 131 9 9.2 Method and Conceptual Framework 9.2.1 Research This chapter draws from ongoing ethnographic research on mobile phone use and location, centered at Keio Shonan Fujisawa Campus near Tokyo. I draw primarily from two different sets of data. One is a set of ethnographic interviews I conducted in the winter of 2000 with 24 high school and college students about their use of media, including mobile phones. The central body of data behind this paper is a set of 24 " communication diaries " and interviews collected between July and February 2003 with Daisuke Okabe. For this study, our intent was to capture the usage patterns of particular individuals. We adapted data collection methods piloted by Rebecca Grinter and Margery Eldridge (Grinter and Eldridge, 2001), where they asked 10 teenagers to record the time, content, length, location and recipient (or sender) of all text messages for seven days. As with interviews, this data collection method still relies on second-hand accounting, but has the advantage of provid-ing much more detail on usage than can be recalled in a stand-alone interview. We expanded the communication log to include voice calls and mobile Internet, and more details about the location and context of use. Participants were asked to keep records of every instance of mobile phone use, including voice, short text messages, e-mail and web use, for a period of two days. They noted the time of the usage, who they were in contact with, whether they received or initiated the contact, where they were, what kind of communication type was used, why they chose that form of communication, who was in the vicinity at the time, if there were any problems associated with the usage and the content of the communication. After completion of the diaries, we conducted in-depth interviews that covered general attitudes and background information relevant to mobile phone use and detailed explication of key instances of usage recorded in the diaries. Our study involved seven high school students (aged 16–18), six college students (aged 18–21), two house-wives with teenage children (in their forties) and nine professionals (aged 21–51). The gender split was roughly equal, with 11 males and 13 females. A total of 594 instances of communication were collected for the high school and college students and 229 for the adults. The major-ity of users were in the Tokyo Kanto region. Seven were recruited in the Osaka area in southern Japan to provide some geographic variation. This paper focuses on the communications of the high school and col-lege students. I turn now to the theoretical and conceptual framework for the analysis. Mobile Communications