In a revealing
survey of Japanese teen mobile users (10-19 yr olds) vs older young mobile users (20s-40s) by Japanese advertising researchers Standard, junior high school were found to spend about 3.3 hours a day on their mobile phones mailing and surfing the web, translating to about 1/4 of their waking hours.
Beyond the time spent in constant contact with the phone, the level of email/SMS traffic with "friends" contacted on the phone via mail or other means decreased as the surveyed sample grew in age. Respondents in their 20s had an average message traffic of 116 messages a day (received or sent), while respondents in their 40s had daily traffic of under 10 messages. Timing also seemed to be a crucial factor, with 1/3 of teen respondents responding to messages within 3 minutes.
The channel zapping TV culture of the 90s and split-second attention spans seems to have filtered down into a twitterized social cocoon of messages and mobile web use. Complaints this generation cannot get their act together is altogether misplaced: I would daresay they are more politically active, socially pro-active, communicative and responsive than their older siblings and fathers. Multitasking and split-attentions give glimpses of a more fuzzy and ubiquitous online identity... to when the totems and taboos that anthropologists use to codify this new communication space? Will these be the consumer brands? or emoticons fusing with notoriety/popularity = social emoticons?
No-one knows, but what is certain is that the phone is instrumental in the creation of this new vox populi. And more and more teens will spend their time in conditions of mobility living two separate lives superimposed one on the other: their mobile life and their physical one. To when 50% of waking life on the phone?
