In this reading Mizuko Ito analyses the usage of mobile phone by the youth of Japanese society. This chapter brought me some memories of the time I spent in Japan. Living in Japan I personally do not remember taking calls while on the train and rarely saw people taking calls. As Mizuko describes, if they actually happen to take a call they try block the sound of the conversation with their hands in the form of a shell, and they keep the conversation as short as possible, actually text messages are the preferred form of communication on public transport. Last November while travelling in Japan, I witnessed an event that took place on a train. A teenager boy took a mobile phone call, and engaged in a loud conversation, laughing frequently. Sometime later a man whilst leaving caught hold of the boys’ collar and begun to choke the boy just as Homer is seen to choke Bart in the Simpsons, a popular American cartoon, only stopping to exit the train. The scene was quite shocking as it happened so unexpectedly, and especially because Japanese people are usually so complacent. Presumably the man was so outraged by the boy’s behaviour he in turn was moved to behave outside social norms.
As seen in the previous chapter, Moores in ‘Doubling of place’ narrates an event that occurred on a train in New York, where a young woman using an unpleasant tone was having a private conversation over the phone in a public place and became annoyed by another commuter making eye contact with her. Comparing both societies, there is a some evidence that the use of mobile phones on public transport is frowned upon in both, however perhaps in the west, it is not unusual and more of an annoyance whereas in Japan it is almost unheard of and perhaps, a moral outrage.
Another interesting analysis was accomplished in the household environment, which shows that once again the mobile is the preferred way of communication, which appears to be on account of greater privacy, an increased sense of freedom and less parental control. The same feeling is carried on in class where Japanese students just as students in many other countries, rely on text messages throughout class time. The efficacy of mobile phones was a boost for teenagers, enabling them to communicate free from the influence of time or space. Mobile phones heps to overcome the power geometry of time and space. I personally admire the subtle way (most of the times) in which Japanese society conducts its principle of behaviour.
Ito, Mizuko. “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, ans the Replacement of Social Contact.” In Ling, Rich and Pedersen, Per, Eds. Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer – Verlag, 2005, 131-148.
