‘Ever since the early human beings devised a spoken language and learned to communicate verbally with each other, there has been a search for ways to extend the distance over which these communications can travel. A variety of methods have been developed over the years since then to do just this.’ (Gibson 1997, 15). Mobile telephones are the latest technology used, in the continuation of this innate human quest described by Stephen W. Gibson. In this essay I will be studying the customs in which the public viewed during my observation used mobile telephones. This will include discussion of phone calls made in private and in public, the use of text messages and attitudes towards the mobile phone.
My observation notes have not been included here. The site was the main shopping mall in a large town, the specific place was the central square, observed from a first floor café balcony, the time was a weekday afternoon. Before I begin to scrutinise the results I need to disclose my presumption as an onlooker: if a person was viewed, looking very much like they were doing an action relevant to this study, I presumed the sincerity of their action. With this established we begin the process of analysing the data collected.
During the observation period I was able to witness twenty instances of people talking on mobile telephones. This was the most common use that I detected in my study. The youngest person demonstrating an example of this behaviour was a young teenage girl (case 15) and the oldest a middle-aged man (case 39) . There was a regular flow of people talking on the mobile telephones but the types of conversation were almost impossible to discern between, only visual observation was available. However what I can centre discussion around is the part of the call that I witnessed. This ranged from a conversation where two teenage boys had a communication at the telephone, with one listening to the other speaking and also to the person at the opposite end of the line, he was clearly involved with this telephone call (case 3). This is in marked contrast to a later conversation (case 8), where the man walks along with two other girls but they are excluded from the conversation, in several other cases we see examples of this (cases 15, 16, 20, 27, 31, 35, 38.). Exclusion from the conversation on the phone is a common theme here and I could see the affect on people as they walked along with the person on the telephone. In case 15 I observed ‘the other girl sitting uncomfortably’ and not knowing whether to look away or to listen to one side of the conversation.
It is ironic how the telephone, designed to ease the ability to communicate has in instances like this, depleted the sociability of spending time with people. This should be true of non-mobile telephone conversations too. Talking to ‘Judy’ and ‘Julia’ disclosed that for both the telephone user and onlooker, when someone is communicating on the telephone, it is very difficult to feel comfortable or included.
American Train Company, Amtrak took a positive response to telephone conversations on their passenger trains. They established special booths to insure privacy (Gibson 1997, 83); this tells us that at least some phone calls require privacy. Whether this applies to all telephone calls, and how this would impact on mobile telephone use is an interesting question. A recent article in The Times newspaper suggested that ‘few of the original reservations remain about mobile phone use and few heads turn at vaccuous chatter on trains and other public places’. However, we can also see the continuing opinion that mobile telephones are not acceptable in public, ‘Mobile free train carriages are slowly becoming more common’ (Coates & Lister 2001, 9). We can look at the popular television programme, Trigger Happy TV (Channel 4 Productions, 20/4/01, 21.30 hrs) to see a contemporary view on this situation. A recurrent sketch in this comedy programme is the; ‘I can’t talk, I’m in the…’ where an actor dressed as a normal member of the public in the setting chosen, suddenly gets up and shouts; ‘I can’t talk, I’m in the library‘, then walks out holding a huge phone to his ear.
Whereas the telephone had been bound to houses, desks, and boxes where privacy had not been a problem, the advent of mobile telecommunications exposed the gaps in the social convention of telephone usage. The lead up to mobile telephone systems gave no indication of the problems we face today. Original systems were bulky, bound to a large power source and predominantly heavy which meant that the use was generally in a car, again another private place. When portable handsets became available the only comparable item was the walkie-talkie, which held a typically specified use for outside or close proximity and wasn’t designed for lengthy communication in the same form as the telephone.
‘Judy’ and ‘Julia’ both describe a similar feeling of unease in regard to this matter. ‘Judy’ was simply uncomfortable talking in public on her mobile phone whilst ‘Julia’ found it difficult to know what to do with herself if she was called and with one friend. ‘Julia’ thought that she was uncomfortable because her attention was focused elsewhere and if the person with her was left for any length of time with her attention elsewhere she thought this was very rude. However ‘Julia’ did say two interesting things, firstly that if there were two people with her, then she didn’t feel bad, as they weren’t being left to themselves. Secondly that if the person she was with and the person on the end of the phone were friends, then they could all talk and this exclusion would not occur. ‘Christopher’, on the other hand, never felt the same as ‘Julia’ and ‘Judy’ because he lacked the same experience. Instead he had used his mobile telephone to communicate in text messages.
A new phenomena initialised by the mobile phone has been Short message service or the text message. It requires the telephone user to type textual information into the telephone handset by use of an alphanumeric keypad. Shorthand for the use of text messages is one of the latest additions to the knowledge of the mobile telephone user. Shorthand is required because of the limited space, roughly 160 characters per message. This means that messages need to be as concise as possible whilst keeping the meaning intact. The abbreviation used in these text messages has created an ‘entire new language’ (Coates & Lister 2001, 9).. ‘See’ becomes ‘c’, you becomes ’u’, ‘ta, ta for now’ becomes ‘tt4n’, ‘to’ or ‘too’ becomes ‘2’, ’later’ becomes ‘ltr’ and so on. Small books have been sold to fill text messages with abbreviations, but we can only understand the meaning if we know what the abbreviation stands for and so we may need to purchase another small book to ‘decode’ what the message says (Ellis & McClintock, 1994, 68).
Text messages were another regular feature in the observation I conducted at the shopping mall. We have ten instances of people using text messages on their phones. The youngest person demonstrating this facility was probably (case 28) a young girl walking with her family and the oldest (case 40) a thirty year old woman. This puts the age span of these users below the set talking on the phone. Whereas before we had a range including a middle aged man, now the range only stretches up to a thirty year old woman. It is a largely younger group who were viewed text messaging, (cases 1, 7, 18, 22, 23, 26, 28, and 43.) were all about twenty years old or younger.
‘Judy’ aged forty eight, described a lack of interest in text messaging altogether as her mobile telephone fulfilled its requirements as a landline phone in a portable package. An important point to mention is that Text Messaging will only work between mobile telephone handsets. A message can be sent from a mobile telephone or web-accessed computer but only received by another mobile telephone handset. This establishes the exclusivity of text messaging to mobile phones and also to our discussion on the habits of the users. If a user wished to begin text messaging another then it assumes access to a mobile telephone.
‘Christopher’ represents a mobile telephone user who has reduced his telephone requirements to simply text messages, whereas ‘Judy’ reflects the opposite standpoint, only realising the mobile telephone’s potential as a normal handset. We could identify the age gap between the two, ‘Christopher’ at eight-teen and ‘Judy’ at forty-eight. This doesn’t presume that older people are unable to use the new technology, as I feel sure some young people would be unable to, but nevertheless we do see a general pattern of the young using text messaging in more active way.
Text messaging could be a partial solution to the privacy theme that we discussed earlier. Sending a message is discreet, as it is silent and simply requires pressing the buttons on the telephone and looking at the screen. No noise is required and a message could be sent quite quickly to another person. However the limited size of the messages would mean that more than one may need to be sent. If the person required hasn’t a mobile phone then it is impossible to text message them.
Past observations highlight the role of text messaging in youth culture. We have an example of a conversation taking place entirely through this medium. This was perhaps in a precarious situation but nevertheless demonstrates a channel of communication which is used in a new way. Also the car journey across the country demonstrated how a medium of communication exclusive to the mobile telephone, encouraged the communication and social atmosphere of the group and this was despite the exclusivity of the medium. Use of text messaging was restricted to a more personal sphere in the observation at the shopping mall. One of the two business persons whom I observed during the study is included amongst the number using Short messaging services. Without knowledge of the message and the recipient we are unable to discern between the personal and more formal purpose. It would be strange for a Business communication to occur via use of this medium, with the somewhat small area for a message to be scribed. A telephone call would allow faster transmission of information, with a minute’s worth of speech easily more than could be written in several text messages.
Half of the population are said to own mobile telephones. As this trend continues, there use in public may become a larger problem. No real conclusion has been reached but soon we will be forced to either take a stand against telephone calls in public, or forevermore tolerate the sound of one-sided conversations wherever we go. Text messaging is a method of silent communication using the mobile phone but as I have discussed, we are not able to use the messages to entirely replace the speech driven call. However, as the 3G (or next generation) mobile phones are tested today, the future of the mobile phone with television, Internet and video-telephone built inside, will advent a new set of features complete with their own problems (Coates & Lister 2001, 9).
April 2001