Mobile Use of IT

The emergence of worldwide computing networks is often said to make us all inhabitants of a “global village”. It will not matter where you are in the world, you can still communicate with everybody else. You will be able to access relevant information regardless. This has not made us less mobile, however. On the contrary, we are more mobile than ever. It may sound like a paradox, but an impressive set of statistics supports our claim: ƒ 25% of computer systems sold are for mobile use. ƒ Europe has 55 million cellular telephone (GSM) subscribers. ƒ USA had 2,24 million users of wireless internet-access in 1997. There could be 10 million by the end of 2000. ƒ 300 000 people are, at any time, airborne above USA. ƒ 300 000 people travel by car and train into London every morning. The global village is indeed a mobile one. Mobile Informatics is the field concerned with equipping the mobile society with innovative and useful services and applications. The purpose of this paper to explore the core concepts of Mobile Informatics, i.e., mobility and mobile IT use, and outline current problems and possibilities of IT use in mobile situations.