For today's Wired News, I filed a review on Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, a new book co-edited by Mizuko Ito that traces how mobile phones became an integral part of Japanese culture. The book teaches us a few new things about how technology changes societies in a broader sense, too:
[It] begins by tracing the evolution of mobile media from its roots in the wireless telephones found on '50s-era merchant ships, through '90s pager culture to contemporary smartphones. Then it explores how those devices became a source of pervasive connectedness to friends, family, lovers and co-workers — a completely different kind of connectivity from the "other-world" internet space experienced through personal computers.
The Japanese word for cell phone — keitai, meaning "something you carry with you" — provides a hint about its role within Japanese culture. Over time, mobile devices in Japan have come to be perceived not so much as bundles of technical features, or tools for replicating PC functions from the road, but personal accessories that help users sustain constant social links with others.
In one essay, Ichiyo Habuchi describes that always-on state of wireless closeness as a "telecocoon" — "a zone of intimacy in which people maintain relationships with others who they have already encountered."
And contributor Kenichi Fujimoto refers to the devices themselves as "territory machines" capable of transforming any space — a subway train seat, a grocery store aisle, a street corner — into "(one's) own room and personal paradise."
Previously:
Keitai culture book by Mizuko Ito is now out
