Context Special: What Mobile Phones say without Words

Mobile phones offer the legendary example of an appropriated technology: SMS texting was never meant for public use and has now swept the world. When Jonathan Donner of the Earth Institute at Columbia University presented "What can be said with a missed call? Beeping via mobile phones in sub-Saharan Africa" he addressed another case of mobile phone appropriation: the happy association of a call with a particular person and the visibility of who that is. He was speaking at "Seeing, Understanding, Learning in the Mobile Age" (see UN story: Life in the Mobile Age).

Donner explored the widespread practice of "beeping" between mobile phone users in Sub-Saharan Africa, talking particularly about his experience in Rwanda. Beeping (or flashing) involves calling a number and hanging up before the mobile's owner can pick up the call. The mobile's call log and address book functions signal who called, and when.

Sophisticated social rules have developed around the practice. Most beeps, says Donner, are requests to the mobile owner to call back immediately, but beeps can also send a relational signal, such as 'I'm thinking of you' or send a pre-negotiated instrumental message such as 'pick me up now'. It all hangs on context. (The concept of this last practice may be recognisable to the generations who used pay phones to say: 'I'm at the station now, come and get me...' without inserting any money.)

His research, based on interviews with small business owners and university students in Rwanda, reveals that the dominant pay-as-you-go, caller-pays model of charging in Africa supports beeping by poorer people who wish to speak to those they consider better able to afford the call. (Again, this practice is probably recognisable to parents and teenagers in countries with similar tariffs.) Within Rwanda, a considerable etiquette has become associated, for instance: 'Do not beep too frequently or at the wrong time' is one rule drawn out by Donner and another: 'If a recipient does not reply, beep again.' Evidently women can beep their suitors, but do not expect to be beeped by them.

Because of the complexity of the behaviours that have grown up round beeping, people need initiation. As one interviewee put it: 'Sometimes people don't get it at first. Then after one mistake, it works. With new people it is tricky. They need some orientation.'

(You may want to look back to UN story: The Medium is the Message where the nature of mobile phones was considered: 'The call itself is ephemeral, but the persistent element is the need to make contact and the circle of friends with whom contact is important. Friends are content, he concluded, and the medium can be the message: for instance when using the phone to 'flash' someone where the only message is "I want to talk to you."')

Donner was talking in a session shared with a number of other speakers on the subject of cultural variations in phone use.

Kunikazu Amagasa of Keio University, Japan, spoke on "The Emergence of Keitai Family: Inner constructions of today’s family from the view point of Keitai use". His paper explored the relationship between the sense of family and the use of mobile phones, or keitai, in Japan. 'The popularization of keitai in Japan may be distinguished from other countries in terms of the strong impact on the usage among adolescent children,' he said. 'I suggest that in the near future, our understandings of 'family' may have two distinctive characteristics at the same time:
* the use of keitai will contribute to concentrate the personal identity within the families, which may result in a stronger sense of togetherness among family members.
* simultaneously, the social functions of families may reduce and the use of keitai may destroy some aspects of the sense of togetherness among family members.

Chaensumon Ukritwiriya spoke on the use of mobile phones in Thailand to signal status. 'Just as young Finns who have adopted the term "Kanny", which refers to an extension of the hand, as a synonym for their cell phones, young Thais call their mobile phones "Mue Tue" which is similar', she began. 'For Thai youth, being cool is mostly connected to self-actualization and wealth. The meaning of the mobile phone in terms of necessity, luxury, modernity, and fashion is problematic among Thai youth, and this has brought about social and cultural changes and the over-consumption of mobile phones.'

Ken Masters of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, looked at integrating phone messages into m-learning for students. The university decided to use early generation phones to supplement administrative procedures in the running of two of its face-to-face courses. The type of communication chosen was exclusively the broadcast of administrative messages such as re-scheduling (and cancelling) of classes, network problems, and availability of test results. 'At a superficial glance, with its concentration on administrative functions, the project does not seem remarkable,' says Masters, 'particularly as the developed world moves into sophisticated m-learning. The importance of the project, however, is that it illustrates a set of principles useful for the introduction of this technology into the third-world environment, or into any institution making first steps into m-learning. Apart from meeting the current need, the project aims at a philosophical and psychological goal of adapting current mindsets of staff and students to the use of mobile communication in teaching.'

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