Sociological study on mobile phone in France
The Experientia tribe translated a study published by the French association of mobile operators about the evolution of phone usage in recent years. In the early days, mobiles were accused of plunging users in hermetic bubbles. Truth is phones developed more collaboration and reinvented interactions.
This study shows the gap that exists between the anticipated impact of technologies and their real effects. It exposes a part of our intuitive resistance to progress, a mechanism where we tend to think that every new way of interacting with others is fatally less rich that the ones we grew up with. I am convinced my grandfather thinks our generation’s social life is dehumanized when he sees us express deep feelings on SMS. But the facts - and a few years of usage - seem to prove different. How long will we claim that people who build their friends base on Facebook are not enjoying a proper social life?
Findings from the French study:
1. The mobile phone is no longer just a personal device, it is integrated within collective practices both in the family and between friends.
2. The mobile phone goes from being personal to transitory, from intimate to visible.
3. New social conventions are being established around the mobile phone
4. The use of the mobile phone is governed more by example than by rules and prohibitions.
5. While the mobile phone is often presented as the token of an individualistic and atomised society, in reality one observes collective and collaborative behaviours around the mobile in the family and between friends.
6. The mobile phone is seen as a “average medium” that renews amateur photo and film practice.
