Personal, Portable, Pedestrian

This talk will review ethnographic studies of how mobile messaging and Internet use are embedded in the social networks and cultural ecologies of Japanese youth. These cases will be discussed in relation to the broader trend towards portable and ubiquitous media forms that make digital content and communication highly personalized and seamlessly integrated with more and more settings of everyday life in Japan. The central argument is that current trends in Japanese mobile media point to a shift in the role of information and communication technology: a role that is more personal, portable, and pedestrian, in contrast to desktop-based PC use that has been central to Internet development thus far. This constellation of "sociotechnical" characteristics will be analyzed in relation to three different dimensions. The first is a new social awareness that we are finding among heavy mobile phone users in Japan, where people experience lightweight "always-on" social contact with intimates. The second are new methodological challenges in ethnographic research as we try to track, observe and document the small scale and interstitial communications that comprise these forms of social contact. Finally, is a unique design orientation that prioritizes smaller, private, and intimate technological forms rather than immersion, fidelity, and high bandwidth.