Social Uses of Mobile Phones

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Social Uses of Mobile Phones
IS146 Foundations of New Media

• Prof. Marc Davis, Prof. Peter Lyman, and danah
  boyd
• UC Berkeley SIMS
• Tuesday and Thursday 200 pm 330 pm
• Spring 2005
• http//www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is1
  46/s05/

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Lecture Overview

• Review of Last Time
• Information Theory
• The Telephone from Bell to Cellphones
• Today
• Social Uses of Mobile Phones
• Preview of Next Time
• Reading Visual Representations I

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Lecture Overview

• Review of Last Time
• Information Theory
• The Telephone from Bell to Cellphones
• Today
• Social Uses of Mobile Phones
• Preview of Next Time
• Midterm Study Guide
• Reading Visual Representations I

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Information Theory

• Claude Shannon in the 1940s studying signal
  communication
• Ways to measure information
• Communication
• Producing the same message at its destination as
  that seen at its source
• Problem
• A noisy channel can distort the message
• Semantic aspects are irrelevant

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Human Communication Theory?
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Daniel Delmore on Salen Zimmerman

• Weaver says that, "information is a measure of
  one's freedom of choice when one selects a
  message. ... What are some examples of games
  that test the information theory and the
  description listed above?

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Daniel Delmore on Salen Zimmerman

• Noise increases the uncertainty of the signal,
  and therefore the amount of information it
  contains. Is this concept of noise a good thing
  when it comes to information? Specifically is
  this a safe or not? In what context/environment
  is noise good to exist in?

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Daniel Arnold on Salen Zimmerman

• Salen and Zimmerman generally define information
  as "a measure of how certain you can be about the
  nature of a signal," emphasizing that the more
  uncertainty, the more information. Does this
  definition reduce the amount of information
  present in society? Given this definition, would
  you (still) consider people to be bombarded with
  information overload?

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Daniel Arnold on Salen Zimmerman

• Assuming that information simply is based on
  uncertainty, would this decrease the reliability
  of information? How do we assign credibility if
  all information depends on uncertainty?

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Daniel Arnold on Salen Zimmerman

• According to Salen and Zimmerman, "Noise
  increases the amount of information and
  uncertainty in a message." How would noise
  increase the amount of information in any given
  message? Is not all the information of a message
  contained in the signal itself? How exactly,
  does background noise add information?

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Daniel Arnold on Salen Zimmerman

• Given the separation of meaning and information,
  can meaning be labeled information when it
  contains some ambiguity? For instance, when a
  word can be defined in several different ways.

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Lecture Overview

• Review of Last Time
• Information Theory
• The Telephone from Bell to Cellphones
• Today
• Social Uses of Mobile Phones
• Preview of Next Time
• Midterm Study Guide
• Reading Visual Representations I

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Mizuko (Mimi) Ito

• Annenberg Center for Communication (University of
  Southern California)
• Stanford PhD in anthropology PhD in education
• Believes in youth empowerment, youth-centered
  ethnography
• Studies mobile phone culture and media mixing

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Keitai Culture in Japan

• SMS (texting) vs. keitai internet email
• Different technological protocols
• Economics and social practice in Japan
• Myths cheaper, easier
• Carriers
• 7,521 (72) - average student bill/month
• Why does texting work there and not here?

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Slides from Mimi Ito

• Slides from Mimi Ito shown in lecture not posted
• For a related web-accessible talk from Mimi Ito
  see
• Ito.pptTitle Understanding the Mobile User The
  Case of JapanAuthor Mimi Ito research
  associate, USC Annenberg Center for
  Communication Mellon Teaching Fellow, USC
  department of Anthropology

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Diary Study

• What is a diary study?
• Record every interaction with the mobile
• Indicate meta commentary
• Complements data record
• When are diary studies useful?
• Interactions over extended periods of time
• Want to know what people are thinking during
  interaction before they forget

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Cheskin Research Who

• We are 23 musicians, 4 self-professed tech geeks,
  8 public performers, 2 scuba divers, 1
  competitive water skier, 3 sailors, 2 futurists,
  13 non-profit volunteers, 7 lefties, 2 aspiring
  novelists, 1 surfer, 4 fine artists, 1 pilot, 6
  nature lovers, and 1 Taiko drummer.
• We come from more than 20 different countries and
  cultures. We speak English, Spanish, Portuguese,
  Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Japanese,
  Tagalog and a few others.  
• We also have professional design principles. We
  have academic credentials in psychology,
  sociology, anthropology, design, e-business,
  media, branding, identity, communications,
  advertising, product development and packaging.
  We have long experience in many markets. And we
  find that all of the above feeds all of the
  above.

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Cheskin Research Design Principles

• Understand what others don't.
• Observe the world. Be rigorous as you face the
  facts. Look past conventional wisdom, question
  everything, and keep on diving until you find a
  unique perspective.
• Be a powerful presence.
• Know who you are, what you stand for, and what
  makes you different. Create a distinct position
  through your products and practices, and use
  design to tell the world. In all your actions, be
  authentic -- use your own voice, your own words,
  and your own style.  
• Be relevant.
• Listen. Observe. Pay attention to the needs and
  aspirations of others, and strive to fulfill them
  -- but only promise what you know you can
  deliver. Make compassion and responsiveness your
  hidden agenda.
• Distinguish yourself.
• Discover the thing that makes you unique, and use
  it to differentiate yourself. Express it in
  everything you do and mind the details. Go beyond
  the norm by finding creative ways to add value to
  every brand experience.
• Make change.
• Catalyze your community with positive action. Be
  passionate in your beliefs, prescient in your
  observations, and proactive in your behavior.
  Stick your neck out, and make a real difference.
• Evolve or die.
• Size, age, and wealth are no defense against
  change and no excuse for complacency. Stay alert,
  stay flexible, stay current, and embrace change.

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Cheskin Research Methods and Goals

• Methods
• Quantitative primary research with teens, age
  13-18, and young adults, age 19-24
• Interviews with industry experts
• Secondary research
• Motivations for wireless study
• Youth influence larger consumer trends
• Figure out new wireless product and service
  offerings
• Goals
• Understand the phenomena being observed
• Advise customers about what actions to take based
  on that understanding
• Sell these services and the value of their
  approach

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Cheskin Research The Wireless Future

1. Social connectivity and entertainment will be the
   primary defining characteristics of wireless
   devices in the youth market, and likely the
   consumer market at large
2. Young people will build relationships via
   wireless devices
3. Multitasking capabilities will flourish within
   the youth market
4. Personal security and convenience will continue
   to be motivating factors for first time mobile
   phone consumers

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Cheskin Research The Wireless Future

• Personalization of design, function, and
  interface will be a common expectation
• Wireless entertainment and information
  applications will become favored "gap-fillers"
• Strategic convergence will define the most
  successful wireless devices
• Entertainment will drive the development of
  wireless cross-platform content

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Ito and Cheskin on Mobile Youth

• How do their methods, motivations, and goals
  compare?
• How do their findings compare?
• What factors affect the similarities and
  differences?

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Nick Reid on Ito and Okabe

• How do social spaces intersect? What I mean
  is, if there is a situation where a group of
  people are together, and through telepresence,
  how does this outside party enter into a group?
  How is their presence felt by people who are
  there or are not there, would it really seem like
  the person is in the next room?

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Nick Reid on Ito and Okabe

• A question that would be fun to discuss is what
  counts as contact? Is contact a hug or is
  contact a SMS? Does a communication not being
  physical demean the communication? When a
  situation is predictable there is no information
  present. Another question would be, does
  contact actually have to transmit information?

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Steven Lybeck on Ito and Okabe

• Ito and Okabe show that new technologies are
  spawning the creation of virtual social spaces
  that are quite analogous to physical ones. Could
  these virtual spaces supersede or even replace
  interaction in physical spaces? Why or why not?

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Steven Lybeck on Ito and Okabe

• Are there any examples of virtual spaces
  constructed without the use of new media
  technologies?

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Lecture Overview

• Review of Last Time
• Information Theory
• The Telephone from Bell to Cellphones
• Today
• Social Uses of Mobile Phones
• Preview of Next Time
• Midterm Study Guide
• Reading Visual Representations I

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Midterm Study Guide

• Midterm structure
• Short answer questions
• Ethnographic analysis question
• LOGO programming analysis question
• Studying tips
• Use midterm study guide
• Study in groups
• Be prepared to answer all questions on your own

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Readings for Next Time

• Gunther R. Kress and Theo van Leeuwen. Reading
  Images The Grammar of Visual Design, London
  Routledge, 1995, p. 1-42.
• Discussion Questions
• Onesta Francis
• Natalie Torin