Keith N Hampton

An article from this weekend’s Financial Times covers it all: Internet addiction, WiFi hotspots, location-awareness, mobile phones, information overload, flash mobs, network individualism… and the kitchen sink. Probably the broadest news article I have ever read on the impact of new media on society, it includes references and quotes from some of my favorite sociologists, including Manuel Castells, Barry Wellman, and Mizuko Ito. Despite the ambitious attempt at breadth, it brings together some really interesting concepts and does a nice job of providing an overview of some of the most relevant research questions currently under study. In particular I want to pint out references to Mizuko Ito’s new edited book Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. I have been waiting for this book for some time. Ito\’s anthropological studies of mobile phone use amongst Japanese children are very revealing and contain numerous new and important observations. In particular, the use of mobile phones in maintaining a type of “full-time intimacy” or persistent social contacts, the obligations of cell phone use, and the role of text messaging in signaling availability for other forms of exchange.