Download Network Localities

Japanese Youth
and the Mobile Internet
Mizuko Ito
Annenberg Center for Communication, USC
Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus
Presentation Overview
 Overview of Japanese youth and keitai
(mobile phones)
 Particularities of youth demographic
 Ethnographic examples of new social
patterns and norms in keitai usage
 Focus on mobile email/messaging
Statistical Overview
 Keitai ownership
 Students (12 years and up): 75.7%
 Overall: 73.7%
 Subscribe to mobile internet service
 Student mobile phone users: 94.3%
 All mobile phone users: 81%
 Source: Video Research Survey July 2002
 Keitai average monthly payments
 Students: ¥7186 ($59)
 Overall: ¥5613 ($46)
 Source: IPSe Marketing Inc. Survey December 2002
Mobile Email Summary
 Short message/email users
 Students: 95.4%
 Overall: 75.2%
 Over 5 messages/day
 Students: 91.7%
 Overall: 68.1%
 Teens send 2X more emails than twenty somethings
 Views message immediately
 Students: 92.3%
 Overall: 68.1%
 Source: Video Research Survey July 2002
Ethnographic Study
 Interviews with 24 high-school and college
students in winter 2000
 Communication diary research with 17
users (8 high school and college students)
in 2002
 Focus on keitai as someplace,
somewhere technologies
Youth and Politics of Place
 Home context
 Freedom of action
 Spatially distanced from peers
 School context
 Limitations to social contact
 Spatially co-present
 Public Transportation and Street
 Freedom of motion
 Prohibition against voice calls on public transport and
many restaurants
Messaging and
Mobile Email
 Used in particular places for particular
kinds of communication
 For lightweight contact
 When unsure if recipient is available for
communication (eg. Late night)
 When there are limits to voice calls
 Classroom, public transportation, restaurants
 Akin to note-passing, paging
Mobile Email Peer Spaces
 Youths generally keep open channel with 2-5
intimate friends
 Couples, in particular, maintain ongoing
exchanges when apart
 Expectation that these friends/partners are
always available
 Text-messaging creates virtual place of
continuous connectivity and background
awareness
Peripheral Awareness





“Are you up?”
“I’m walking up the hill now”
“Good night”
“The TV show was awful wasn’t it”
“I was out drinking until 2 and just woke
up”
Enhancing Co-presence
 Augmented co-presence


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“This lesson is a pain”
“Where are you standing?”
“Try asking so and so”
“Check what time the train leaves”
 Extensions of co-presence
 “Thanks for the lift”
 “I forgot to give you back the CD”
I am constantly checking my mail with the
hopeful expectation that somebody has sent me
a message. I always reply right away. With short
text messages I reply quickly so that the
conversation doesn’t stall.