DIMINISHED THOUGHT

Last week Genevieve Bell, an Intel funded anthropologist, came to Purdue to lecture on wireless technologies connection to the spiritual. One of the things she said that I found most humorous was her association of how people use wifi and and cargo cults. Cargo cults are religious movements found primarily in the South Pacific that believe if they enact certain behaviors (usually modeled on technologically superior Caucasian visitors) then the gods will provide them with gifts and tangible goods. Bell notes that people often behave this way with laptops and other wireless devices in that they boot it up and look for a network and just hope that one is available. The mere act of booting up is a ritual that is intended to bring the network. She notes that on a very fundamental level the public doesn't understand wireless technologies and that it takes upon an element of magic and mysticism. The implication is that our behavior is more rooted in an intuitive mystical understanding of the world.

Labels: anthropology, cellphone, ethnography, magic, religion, wifi

Check out Motorolas new motophone designed for individuals in developing nations.

Labels: cellphone, digital divide

I've been transcribing interviews from Beijing for my masters thesis dealing with cell phone usage among young, urban Chinese. One interview I just finished has a girl telling me about how important it is for university students to own a mobile phone in order to participate in university social life. She told me that parent's often purchased mobile phones for their children when they were accepted to university as a reward, even if it was difficult for the parents to afford it. She related it to the one child policy in China, implying that parent's restricted to one child would go the extra mile to make them happy.

Anyway I'll have to see if that finding is replicated in some of the other interviews but I thought it was very interesting.

Labels: cellphone, China, Purdue

While museums have long rented out specialized handsets to take the place of live guides, mobile phones may supplant them as the preferred device for museum goers. Already it is not uncommon to see museum goers using their mobile phones to take pictures of displays and art work, audio tours that you dial up on your phone may become more and more common. Although using mobile phones for audio tours is nothing new, I find that most people I mention this to are unaware of this potential mobile phone usage.

Furthermore, the flexibility offered by mobile phones allow these audio tours to be used in untraditional ways. For example, rather than just touring a museum mobile phones allow individuals to explore a city, such as the constitutional walking tour of philidelphia, or to go on a nature walk in Portland, Oregon. Best of all at the end of the tour you just hang up with no device to return!

I've heard of other devices, such as the ipod, that also have audio tours designed for them. I think these tours have much less potential due to the limited interactivity that they offer. "If you know you party's extension you can enter it now. If you do not, please select from the following options..." Thats right. The same technology that is the bane of our existance by forcing us to interact with computerized receptionists can also be used for something a little more fun.

Labels: cellphone, learning, mobile phone