Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
6.1 Mobile Phones, the Internet, and the Networked Society
Telecommunications, including telephony and the internet, are prime reflections,
as well as producers of, the global space of flows. The hegemony of post-Fordist
capitalism, which centered largely on the adoption of computers and the digiti-
zation of information, ushered in an unprecedented era of social and individual
connectivity. In the context of interpersonal relations, two key innovations in this
regard were mobile telephony and the internet.
One of the most impressive technological changes of the last two decades has
been the mobile or cellular telephone (Dekimper et al.
1998
; Goggin
2006
;
Campbell and Park
2008
; Comer and Wikle
2008
; Ling and Donner
2009
). Rapid
decreases in the size and cost of mobile phones, and the minimal infrastructure
necessary to cultivate their networks, have made them increasingly affordable for
vast numbers of people. Today, the vast majority of the world's telephones are
mobile phones, which offer unprecedented convenience and ease of access. In
2011, 59.6 % of the world's inhabitants—5.2 billion people—used mobile phones,
more than ten times as many as use landlines and far more than the two billion who
used the internet. For example, China now has the world's largest population of
mobile phone users (Dong and Li
2004
; Ding et al.
2010
). The extent of mobile
telephony worldwide is evident in Fig.
6.1
. Average penetration rates in 2010
exceeded that of landlines everywhere, and in many countries there are far more
mobile phones than people. Even in much of sub-Saharan Africa, the world's least
connected region, 10-50 % of the population uses mobile phones. Mobile tele-
phony is expanding even more quickly than the internet: between 2003 and 2010,
the world's number of mobile phone users jumped by 187 %. This growth was,
unsurprisingly, unevenly distributed around the world: while rates of increase were
relatively modest throughout the economically advanced world, in much of Africa
and Central Asia they exceeded 1,000 %.
The worldwide adoption of mobile communication technologies has led to a
widespread reconfiguration of identity and the contours and rhythms of everyday
life, allowing users to connect and interact with one another to unprecedented
degrees (Farman
2011
). For example, mobile phones have engineered a mounting
porosity between the private and public realms as once private conversations are
held in public spaces (Townsend
2000
; Hampton, and Wellman
2001
; Mäenpäa
2001
; Fortunati
2002
; Ling
2004
; Pain et al.
2005
; Ling and Campbell
2009
). They
have allowed for sharply improved coordination of mobility, improved use of time
while driving or walking, and security in case of emergencies. Increasingly
equipped with cameras, mobile phones allow for digital transmission of graphics
as well as voice and text messages. Ling (
2010
) argues that the ubiquity of mobile
telephony enhances social cohesion, although at times this unity is purchased at the
cost of lower rates of face-to-face contact among proximate persons. Thus,
Sooryamoorthy et al. (
2011
) found in a study of Kerala, India that mobile phone
users were more likely to develop more nonlocal ties than were non-users, hinting
at a generalized expansion of social relations over space.
