Cell Phone Nation

NPR has done an interesting radio discussion on the topic of how cell (mobile) phones are changing our lives and environments. Overall it's quite good and touches on a lot of topics in a half hour or so. Guests Barry Wellman and Maribel Dolinov bring some interesting insights and the former mentions that we are coordinating between interlocking dispersed groups, or perhaps more accurately - ad-hoc networks.

I did however think they missed quite a lot of interesting tangents:

- Technology distracting people from their enjoyment of the present environment didn't start with mobile phones, it started with advertising, commerce, automobile traffic and many other things which have changed how we interact with our current location.

- Part of the reason SMS (text messaging) is so popular outside the US is BECAUSE it allows private conversations. They complain quite a lot about private conversations happening in public in the US. This might be solved by US telcos offering reasonable SMS service 4 years ago like the rest of the world. The show attempts to draw in foreign data but fails to realize that much of the world has moved on from primary use of voice communications.

- There isn't much discussion of the fact that these devices allow us to THINK as groups now. We don't have to make a decision alone - we can gain consensus, collectively act, split up the task, optimize for the group goal. We are overcoming our biological constraints for communication and group awareness.

Have a listen yourself on onpointradio.

ta to Fiona for the tip