Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Papers of the Week
Quick summary:
Fried's thesis develops a cell phone jammer using inspiration from design noir, Hertzian spaces calling it "reality hacking"
Rosen article "Our CellPhones, Ourselves" makes a lot of provocative remarks like
The group is expected never to impinge upon—indeed, it is expected to tacitly endorse by enduring—the individual’s right to withdraw from social space by whatever means he or she chooses: cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPods, DVDs screened on laptop computers. These devices are all used as a means to refuse to be “in” the social space; they are technological cold shoulders that are worse than older forms of subordinate activity in that they impose visually and auditorily on others.
The problem is that, in the twenty-first century, with the breakdown of hierarchies and manners, all social rules are arbitrary.
In terms of the rules of social space, cell phone use is a form of communications panhandling—forcing our conversations on others without first gaining their tacit approval.
Cocooned within our “Personal Area Networks” and wirelessly transported to other spaces, we are becoming increasingly immune to the
boundaries and realities of physical space
Our cell phones become our talismans against being perceived as (or feeling ourselves to be) outsiders.
The Walsh paper from Australia used the theory of planned behavior to explain variation in mobile phone use which I hadn't seen before (cites some organizational behavior paper)
Motorola Generation Here paper explains 3G in terms of community, video and some etiquette, very cross-cultural
Social Defense Mechanisms: Tools for Reclaiming Our Personal Space
by
Limor Fried
Submitted to the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
January 28, 2005
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
ABSTRACT
In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. The electronics industry has little incentive to address this complaint; I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. Both devices were designed and prototyped with reference to the culture-jamming “Design Noir” philosophy. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a user’s personal space. By building functional prototypes that reflect equal consideration of technical and social issues, I identify three attributes of Noir products: Personal empowerment, participation in a critical discourse, and subversion.
Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” This space encompasses not only the form and function of a device, but also how people react and relate to it. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions.
mentions Hall-proximity, McLuhan
Media Lab: Ishii soften methods by which electronic devices interact with people and Schmandt believes that devices should be made more intelligent so will know how to be less annoying.
Fried: counter-technology approach devises buffer/antidote to nullify invasion, "reality hacking"
2)Motorola Report:Generation Here 3G
p. 23 In the emerging field of video etiquette, precisely where you focus your phone’s camera is a crucial decision in setting the terms and establishing the possibilities of the video-call to come:
Handset hierarchies also apply to social relationships. In Russia, many people in the 20-35 age range maintain multiple mobile numbers at any one time. Not passing on the number of your newest handset can be a way of prioritising relationships and shedding the friends you no longer want.
p. 19 India is one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, with most of the growth there having taken place in the past five years. Consequently, mobile etiquette has not been established as clearly there as elsewhere. While authorities such as the Bombay Times have recently suggested basic rules for polite and respectful behaviour on the one hand, a younger generation enamoured with the technology is making its own rules and is excited about
the next steps. Given that the average age of the Indian populace is 26, that’s a lot of people.
In terms of previous generations of mobile telephony, Dubai has a similarly laissez-faire approach to voice-based mobile communications. There’s barely even a notion that use of a mobile phone could cause offence. People practise reverse call-waiting: they break off in the middle of
meetings, conversations and meals in restaurants to take calls without a word of apology or explanation, then make no obvious hurry to end them, instead leaving the people they are with to wait for the call to come to its natural conclusion.
p. 20 ii) Then there’s a second kind of territory, one where mobile ownership is very common and talking is entirely acceptable in a wide variety of public contexts. Israel is a small, densely populated country where an almost Chinese notion of physical distance combines with an Italianate tendency towards expressive speech and strong family bonds. Bystanders often get
so much of a sense of the conversation that they feel like they’re in the room with the two participants. (As is often the case in Brazil, too.) i) A third change is in progress: those places in which mobile phone use is most regulated by social convention are also those where not taking a call can cause most anxiety. That is to say that cultures which emphasise dignified and decent behaviour on the phone and a constant awareness of others, can breed a kind of accidental ostentatiousness. It’s a phenomenon that 3G applications, with their power to show the face of
the human on the other end, can serve only to intensify.
In Sweden, where social codes emphasise respect for and consideration of others, interviewees spoke in anthropomorphic terms about their handsets. One said that not answering the phone was like not answering a friend you were sat with in a café; another said that having your phone ring loudly was like talking while someone else was talking.
ii) In another notably polite society, Japan, there is an emphasis on discreet phone use. Obtrusive ringtones and alerts are seen as vulgar, as in Sweden; many Japanese (bar some 50-something males thought to find it difficult to shake the ingrained habit of shouting, a relic of old landline use) employ “quiet voice” modes so they can speak softly but their voice will be amplified and audible at the other end. Checking data or texts when in company is frowned upon. Yet for the Japanese, as for Swedes, the pursuit of good manners leads to a more involved relationship between user and phone in another way too. In Japan, the gestural language of “stomach talk” – the nonverbal communication that expresses respect and is often more important
in an encounter than any words that are spoken – is crucial to social interaction. Japanese phone users studied for this report made the same nonverbal signals of gratitude and deference to their interlocutors when talking on the phone as they would have in person: covering the mouth with the hand, nodding vigorously to display comprehension or agreement. Though they acknowledged that they did it, Japanese users weren’t aware of this “stomach talk” until it was pointed out to them. As video calling expands and body language therefore becomes a conscious
strategy for interacting with someone on a video-call, this phenomenon, the paradox of polite phone-using societies, looks almost certain to intensify.
17 In Australia, a physically vast country whose relatively small population has always clustered around distant urban centres, mobile communication has made sustaining long-distance relationships feasible. The phone doesn’t merely facilitate physical encounters, but also acts as an alternative to them. In other, smaller countries, where jobs rather than geography are
the obstacle to personal proximity, it serves a similar function. So in Sweden, a fighter pilot uses his 3G phone to stay in contact with his girlfriend. The actual information he exchanges with his girlfriend during video calls is not significantly different than it would be with voice only, he explains, but the moving image adds an emotional dimension, things that can’t be said.
8 The emerging 3G archetype is of communities, (Ex Sweden lunarstorm, Japan-mixi social networking
Where are you?
How “Where are you?” was the universal mobile-phone question pinpointed
by Sadie Plant in On the Mobile and why it needs a rethink in the 3G area.
The new technology, after all, is not about mobility, but also, thanks to GPS,
Bluetooth, etc, about specific locations. The relationship between 3G and
the physical world is a new, multifaceted and unique one. South Koreans
can track friends in a neighbourhood via handsets, and make notes for
collective viewing on virtual maps. Some Japanese prefer analogue GPS
(their term for giving directions via video call), but still use GPS – eg, has
led to a reduction in numbers of hikers stranded on weekends.
Our Cell Phones, Ourselves, Rosen
p 34-5
Why do these cell phone conversations bother us more than listening
to two strangers chatter in person about their evening plans or listening
to a parent scold a recalcitrant child? Those conversations are quantitatively
greater, since we hear both sides of the discussion—so why are they
nevertheless experienced as qualitatively different? Perhaps it is because
cell phone users harbor illusions about being alone or assume a degree of
privacy that the circumstances don’t actually allow. Because cell phone
talkers are not interacting with the world around them, they come to
believe that the world around them isn’t really there and surely shouldn’t
intrude. And when the cell phone user commandeers the space by talking,
he or she sends a very clear message to others that they are powerless to insist on their own use of the space. It is a passive-aggressive but extremely effective tactic.
Such encounters can sometimes escalate into rude intransigence or
even violence. In the past few years alone, men and women have been
stabbed, escorted off of airplanes by federal marshals, pepper-sprayed in
movie theaters, ejected from concert halls, and deliberately rammed with
cars as a result of their bad behavior on their cell phones. The Zagat restaurant
guide reports that cell phone rudeness is now the number one complaint
of diners, and USA Today notes that “fifty-nine percent of people
would rather visit the dentist than sit next to someone using a cell phone.”
The etiquette challenges posed by cell phones are universal, although
different countries have responded in slightly different ways. The authors
explain this state of affairs with reference to the Israeli personality, which
they judge to be more enthusiastic about technology and more forceful in
exerting itself in public; the subtitle of their article is “chutzpah and chatter
in the Holy Land.”, regional differences in US,
36 In societies that maintain more formality, such as Japan, loud public conversation
is considered rude, and Japanese people will often cover their mouths and hide their phones from view when speaking into them. Not surprisingly, Americans have turned to that most hallowed but least effective solution to social problems: public education. Cingular Wireless, for example, has launched a public awareness campaign whose
slogan is “Be Sensible.”
There appears to be a rather large disconnect between people’s actual behavior and their reports of their behavior.
Whitmore is correct to suggest that we are in the midst of a period of
adjustment. We still have the memory of the old social rules, which remind
us to be courteous towards others, especially in confined environments
These attempts at etiquette training also evade another reality: the
decline of accepted standards for social behavior. In each of us lurks the
possibility of a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like transformation, its trigger the imposition
of some arbitrary rule. The problem is that, in the twenty-first century,
with the breakdown of hierarchies and manners, all social rules are
arbitrary. “And contra Ms. Whitmore, there is intention
at work in this behavior, even if it is not intentional rudeness. It is the
intentional removal of oneself from the social situation in public space.
This removal, as sociologists have long shown, is something more serious
than a mere manners lapse. It amounts to a radical disengagement from
the public sphere.
Although Goffman wrote in the era before cell phones, he might have
judged their use as a “subordinate activity,” a way to pass the time such as
reading or doodling that could and should be set aside when the dominant
activity resumes. Within social space, we are allowed to perform a range
of these secondary activities, but they must not impose upon the social
group as a whole or require so much attention that they remove us from
the social situation altogether. The opposite appears to be true today. The
group is expected never to impinge upon—indeed, it is expected to tacitly
endorse by enduring—the individual’s right to withdraw from social
space by whatever means he or she chooses: cell phones, BlackBerrys,
iPods, DVDs screened on laptop computers. These devices are all used as
a means to refuse to be “in” the social space; they are technological cold
shoulders that are worse than older forms of subordinate activity in that
they impose visually and auditorily on others.
In terms of the rules of social space, cell phone use is a form of communications
panhandling—forcing our conversations on others without
first gaining their tacit approval. “The force that keeps people in their
communication place in our middle-class society,” Goffman observed,
“seems to be the fear of being thought forward and pushy, or odd, the fear
of forcing a relationship where none is desired.” But middle class society
itself has decided to upend such conventions in the service of greater
accessibility and convenience. This is a dramatic shift that took place in a
very short span of time, and it is worth at least considering the long-term
implications of this subversion of norms. The behavioral rules Goffman so
effectively mapped exist to protect everyone, even if we don’t, individually,
always need them. They are the social equivalent of fire extinguishers
placed throughout public buildings. You hope not to have to use them too
often, but they can ensure that a mere spark does not become an embarrassing
conflagration. In a world that eschews such norms, we find ourselves
plagued by the behavior that Goffman used to witness only among
the denizens of the asylum: disembodied talk that renders all of us
unwilling listeners.
41Then again, we all apparently have a cell phone alter idem, a second self
that we endlessly excuse for making just such annoying cell phone calls.
As a society, we are endlessly forgiving of our own personal “emergencies”
that require cell phone conversation and easily apoplectic about having to
listen to others’.
This is the quintessential actor-observerparadox: as actors, we are always politely exercising our right to be connected,but as observers we are perpetually victimized by the boorish bad manners of other cell phone users.
42Cocooned within our “Personal Area Networks” and wirelessly transported
to other spaces, we are becoming increasingly immune to the
boundaries and realities of physical space.
4)Walsh, Shari P and White, Katherine M (2006) Ring, ring, why did I make that call?
Mobile phone beliefs and behaviour amongst Australian university students. Youth
Studies Australia 25(3):pp. 49-57.
Mobile phone use is a highly prevalent behaviour, particularly amongst adolescents and young adults; however, there is little research investigating psychological factors influencing mobile phone use. This study adopted a theory of planned behaviour belief-based framework to investigate whether young adults who engaged in high and low level mobile phone use differed in their behavioural, normative and control beliefs in relation to mobile phone use.
The Theory of Planned Behaviour
An empirically validated theoretical framework which can be used to investigate the
variation in mobile phone use is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991).
Mobile phone use 5
According to the TPB, behaviour results from a rational, systematic evaluation of salient information. The most proximal determinant of behaviour is an individual’s intentions or motivations to perform the behaviour. Behavioural intentions are believed to be directly influenced by three constructs, attitudes (an individual’s overall, positive or negative, evaluations of the behaviour), subjective norms (an individual’s perception of pressure from important others to perform or not perform the behaviour) and perceived behavioural control (PBC; the level of control an individual believes they have over behavioural performance).
Underlying the direct behavioural determinants are an individual’s salient beliefs
regarding the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitudes are formed on the basis of the individual’s beliefs regarding behavioural outcomes (behavioural beliefs).
Subjective norms reflect the individual’s belief of how much important others expect them to perform or not perform the behaviour (normative beliefs) whilst PBC is believed to result from the individual’s perception of factors that may inhibit or facilitate behavioural performance (control beliefs). A major advantage of utilizing a TPB framework is the ability to compare differences in beliefs between high and low level behavioural performers allowing for a rich understanding of fundamental behavioural influences to be gained.
Quick summary:
Fried's thesis develops a cell phone jammer using inspiration from design noir, Hertzian spaces calling it "reality hacking"
Rosen article "Our CellPhones, Ourselves" makes a lot of provocative remarks like
The group is expected never to impinge upon—indeed, it is expected to tacitly endorse by enduring—the individual’s right to withdraw from social space by whatever means he or she chooses: cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPods, DVDs screened on laptop computers. These devices are all used as a means to refuse to be “in” the social space; they are technological cold shoulders that are worse than older forms of subordinate activity in that they impose visually and auditorily on others.
The problem is that, in the twenty-first century, with the breakdown of hierarchies and manners, all social rules are arbitrary.
In terms of the rules of social space, cell phone use is a form of communications panhandling—forcing our conversations on others without first gaining their tacit approval.
Cocooned within our “Personal Area Networks” and wirelessly transported to other spaces, we are becoming increasingly immune to the
boundaries and realities of physical space
Our cell phones become our talismans against being perceived as (or feeling ourselves to be) outsiders.
The Walsh paper from Australia used the theory of planned behavior to explain variation in mobile phone use which I hadn't seen before (cites some organizational behavior paper)
Motorola Generation Here paper explains 3G in terms of community, video and some etiquette, very cross-cultural
Social Defense Mechanisms: Tools for Reclaiming Our Personal Space
by
Limor Fried
Submitted to the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
January 28, 2005
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
ABSTRACT
In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. The electronics industry has little incentive to address this complaint; I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. Both devices were designed and prototyped with reference to the culture-jamming “Design Noir” philosophy. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a user’s personal space. By building functional prototypes that reflect equal consideration of technical and social issues, I identify three attributes of Noir products: Personal empowerment, participation in a critical discourse, and subversion.
Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” This space encompasses not only the form and function of a device, but also how people react and relate to it. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions.
mentions Hall-proximity, McLuhan
Media Lab: Ishii soften methods by which electronic devices interact with people and Schmandt believes that devices should be made more intelligent so will know how to be less annoying.
Fried: counter-technology approach devises buffer/antidote to nullify invasion, "reality hacking"
2)Motorola Report:Generation Here 3G
p. 23 In the emerging field of video etiquette, precisely where you focus your phone’s camera is a crucial decision in setting the terms and establishing the possibilities of the video-call to come:
Handset hierarchies also apply to social relationships. In Russia, many people in the 20-35 age range maintain multiple mobile numbers at any one time. Not passing on the number of your newest handset can be a way of prioritising relationships and shedding the friends you no longer want.
p. 19 India is one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, with most of the growth there having taken place in the past five years. Consequently, mobile etiquette has not been established as clearly there as elsewhere. While authorities such as the Bombay Times have recently suggested basic rules for polite and respectful behaviour on the one hand, a younger generation enamoured with the technology is making its own rules and is excited about
the next steps. Given that the average age of the Indian populace is 26, that’s a lot of people.
In terms of previous generations of mobile telephony, Dubai has a similarly laissez-faire approach to voice-based mobile communications. There’s barely even a notion that use of a mobile phone could cause offence. People practise reverse call-waiting: they break off in the middle of
meetings, conversations and meals in restaurants to take calls without a word of apology or explanation, then make no obvious hurry to end them, instead leaving the people they are with to wait for the call to come to its natural conclusion.
p. 20 ii) Then there’s a second kind of territory, one where mobile ownership is very common and talking is entirely acceptable in a wide variety of public contexts. Israel is a small, densely populated country where an almost Chinese notion of physical distance combines with an Italianate tendency towards expressive speech and strong family bonds. Bystanders often get
so much of a sense of the conversation that they feel like they’re in the room with the two participants. (As is often the case in Brazil, too.) i) A third change is in progress: those places in which mobile phone use is most regulated by social convention are also those where not taking a call can cause most anxiety. That is to say that cultures which emphasise dignified and decent behaviour on the phone and a constant awareness of others, can breed a kind of accidental ostentatiousness. It’s a phenomenon that 3G applications, with their power to show the face of
the human on the other end, can serve only to intensify.
In Sweden, where social codes emphasise respect for and consideration of others, interviewees spoke in anthropomorphic terms about their handsets. One said that not answering the phone was like not answering a friend you were sat with in a café; another said that having your phone ring loudly was like talking while someone else was talking.
ii) In another notably polite society, Japan, there is an emphasis on discreet phone use. Obtrusive ringtones and alerts are seen as vulgar, as in Sweden; many Japanese (bar some 50-something males thought to find it difficult to shake the ingrained habit of shouting, a relic of old landline use) employ “quiet voice” modes so they can speak softly but their voice will be amplified and audible at the other end. Checking data or texts when in company is frowned upon. Yet for the Japanese, as for Swedes, the pursuit of good manners leads to a more involved relationship between user and phone in another way too. In Japan, the gestural language of “stomach talk” – the nonverbal communication that expresses respect and is often more important
in an encounter than any words that are spoken – is crucial to social interaction. Japanese phone users studied for this report made the same nonverbal signals of gratitude and deference to their interlocutors when talking on the phone as they would have in person: covering the mouth with the hand, nodding vigorously to display comprehension or agreement. Though they acknowledged that they did it, Japanese users weren’t aware of this “stomach talk” until it was pointed out to them. As video calling expands and body language therefore becomes a conscious
strategy for interacting with someone on a video-call, this phenomenon, the paradox of polite phone-using societies, looks almost certain to intensify.
17 In Australia, a physically vast country whose relatively small population has always clustered around distant urban centres, mobile communication has made sustaining long-distance relationships feasible. The phone doesn’t merely facilitate physical encounters, but also acts as an alternative to them. In other, smaller countries, where jobs rather than geography are
the obstacle to personal proximity, it serves a similar function. So in Sweden, a fighter pilot uses his 3G phone to stay in contact with his girlfriend. The actual information he exchanges with his girlfriend during video calls is not significantly different than it would be with voice only, he explains, but the moving image adds an emotional dimension, things that can’t be said.
8 The emerging 3G archetype is of communities, (Ex Sweden lunarstorm, Japan-mixi social networking
Where are you?
How “Where are you?” was the universal mobile-phone question pinpointed
by Sadie Plant in On the Mobile and why it needs a rethink in the 3G area.
The new technology, after all, is not about mobility, but also, thanks to GPS,
Bluetooth, etc, about specific locations. The relationship between 3G and
the physical world is a new, multifaceted and unique one. South Koreans
can track friends in a neighbourhood via handsets, and make notes for
collective viewing on virtual maps. Some Japanese prefer analogue GPS
(their term for giving directions via video call), but still use GPS – eg, has
led to a reduction in numbers of hikers stranded on weekends.
Our Cell Phones, Ourselves, Rosen
p 34-5
Why do these cell phone conversations bother us more than listening
to two strangers chatter in person about their evening plans or listening
to a parent scold a recalcitrant child? Those conversations are quantitatively
greater, since we hear both sides of the discussion—so why are they
nevertheless experienced as qualitatively different? Perhaps it is because
cell phone users harbor illusions about being alone or assume a degree of
privacy that the circumstances don’t actually allow. Because cell phone
talkers are not interacting with the world around them, they come to
believe that the world around them isn’t really there and surely shouldn’t
intrude. And when the cell phone user commandeers the space by talking,
he or she sends a very clear message to others that they are powerless to insist on their own use of the space. It is a passive-aggressive but extremely effective tactic.
Such encounters can sometimes escalate into rude intransigence or
even violence. In the past few years alone, men and women have been
stabbed, escorted off of airplanes by federal marshals, pepper-sprayed in
movie theaters, ejected from concert halls, and deliberately rammed with
cars as a result of their bad behavior on their cell phones. The Zagat restaurant
guide reports that cell phone rudeness is now the number one complaint
of diners, and USA Today notes that “fifty-nine percent of people
would rather visit the dentist than sit next to someone using a cell phone.”
The etiquette challenges posed by cell phones are universal, although
different countries have responded in slightly different ways. The authors
explain this state of affairs with reference to the Israeli personality, which
they judge to be more enthusiastic about technology and more forceful in
exerting itself in public; the subtitle of their article is “chutzpah and chatter
in the Holy Land.”, regional differences in US,
36 In societies that maintain more formality, such as Japan, loud public conversation
is considered rude, and Japanese people will often cover their mouths and hide their phones from view when speaking into them. Not surprisingly, Americans have turned to that most hallowed but least effective solution to social problems: public education. Cingular Wireless, for example, has launched a public awareness campaign whose
slogan is “Be Sensible.”
There appears to be a rather large disconnect between people’s actual behavior and their reports of their behavior.
Whitmore is correct to suggest that we are in the midst of a period of
adjustment. We still have the memory of the old social rules, which remind
us to be courteous towards others, especially in confined environments
These attempts at etiquette training also evade another reality: the
decline of accepted standards for social behavior. In each of us lurks the
possibility of a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like transformation, its trigger the imposition
of some arbitrary rule. The problem is that, in the twenty-first century,
with the breakdown of hierarchies and manners, all social rules are
arbitrary. “And contra Ms. Whitmore, there is intention
at work in this behavior, even if it is not intentional rudeness. It is the
intentional removal of oneself from the social situation in public space.
This removal, as sociologists have long shown, is something more serious
than a mere manners lapse. It amounts to a radical disengagement from
the public sphere.
Although Goffman wrote in the era before cell phones, he might have
judged their use as a “subordinate activity,” a way to pass the time such as
reading or doodling that could and should be set aside when the dominant
activity resumes. Within social space, we are allowed to perform a range
of these secondary activities, but they must not impose upon the social
group as a whole or require so much attention that they remove us from
the social situation altogether. The opposite appears to be true today. The
group is expected never to impinge upon—indeed, it is expected to tacitly
endorse by enduring—the individual’s right to withdraw from social
space by whatever means he or she chooses: cell phones, BlackBerrys,
iPods, DVDs screened on laptop computers. These devices are all used as
a means to refuse to be “in” the social space; they are technological cold
shoulders that are worse than older forms of subordinate activity in that
they impose visually and auditorily on others.
In terms of the rules of social space, cell phone use is a form of communications
panhandling—forcing our conversations on others without
first gaining their tacit approval. “The force that keeps people in their
communication place in our middle-class society,” Goffman observed,
“seems to be the fear of being thought forward and pushy, or odd, the fear
of forcing a relationship where none is desired.” But middle class society
itself has decided to upend such conventions in the service of greater
accessibility and convenience. This is a dramatic shift that took place in a
very short span of time, and it is worth at least considering the long-term
implications of this subversion of norms. The behavioral rules Goffman so
effectively mapped exist to protect everyone, even if we don’t, individually,
always need them. They are the social equivalent of fire extinguishers
placed throughout public buildings. You hope not to have to use them too
often, but they can ensure that a mere spark does not become an embarrassing
conflagration. In a world that eschews such norms, we find ourselves
plagued by the behavior that Goffman used to witness only among
the denizens of the asylum: disembodied talk that renders all of us
unwilling listeners.
41Then again, we all apparently have a cell phone alter idem, a second self
that we endlessly excuse for making just such annoying cell phone calls.
As a society, we are endlessly forgiving of our own personal “emergencies”
that require cell phone conversation and easily apoplectic about having to
listen to others’.
This is the quintessential actor-observerparadox: as actors, we are always politely exercising our right to be connected,but as observers we are perpetually victimized by the boorish bad manners of other cell phone users.
42Cocooned within our “Personal Area Networks” and wirelessly transported
to other spaces, we are becoming increasingly immune to the
boundaries and realities of physical space.
4)Walsh, Shari P and White, Katherine M (2006) Ring, ring, why did I make that call?
Mobile phone beliefs and behaviour amongst Australian university students. Youth
Studies Australia 25(3):pp. 49-57.
Mobile phone use is a highly prevalent behaviour, particularly amongst adolescents and young adults; however, there is little research investigating psychological factors influencing mobile phone use. This study adopted a theory of planned behaviour belief-based framework to investigate whether young adults who engaged in high and low level mobile phone use differed in their behavioural, normative and control beliefs in relation to mobile phone use.
The Theory of Planned Behaviour
An empirically validated theoretical framework which can be used to investigate the
variation in mobile phone use is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991).
Mobile phone use 5
According to the TPB, behaviour results from a rational, systematic evaluation of salient information. The most proximal determinant of behaviour is an individual’s intentions or motivations to perform the behaviour. Behavioural intentions are believed to be directly influenced by three constructs, attitudes (an individual’s overall, positive or negative, evaluations of the behaviour), subjective norms (an individual’s perception of pressure from important others to perform or not perform the behaviour) and perceived behavioural control (PBC; the level of control an individual believes they have over behavioural performance).
Underlying the direct behavioural determinants are an individual’s salient beliefs
regarding the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitudes are formed on the basis of the individual’s beliefs regarding behavioural outcomes (behavioural beliefs).
Subjective norms reflect the individual’s belief of how much important others expect them to perform or not perform the behaviour (normative beliefs) whilst PBC is believed to result from the individual’s perception of factors that may inhibit or facilitate behavioural performance (control beliefs). A major advantage of utilizing a TPB framework is the ability to compare differences in beliefs between high and low level behavioural performers allowing for a rich understanding of fundamental behavioural influences to be gained.
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