With the hectic schedules people have today, trying to balance work and family. The question, “How to be in two places at the same time?” always, felt like a difficult riddle. It’s impossible to be solved.
Impossible until wireless communications was introduced in the 20th century. Now one had the freedom to communicate anywhere without the hindrance of a landline. It’s technology that has grown with the help of teenagers. This embrace of mobile technology caused a shift in generational power. Anthropologist Mizuko Ito believed mobile phones “freed youth from the tyranny of the landline shared by inquisitive family members, creating a space for private communication.” (Rheingold 4).
Not only did youth help increase the popularity of the mobile phone, they, also, introduced the convenience of text messaging referred to as SMS everywhere except the US. “Texting made it possible for young people to conduct conversations that can’t be overheard” (Rheingold 4). This created a trend that allowed people to “construct a networked alternative space that is available from anywhere they are” (Rheingold 5).
This alternative space is what now allows one to be in two places at once. Rich Lang and Birgette Yttri noticed mobile users sharing the same age group “were still available to their social network even when participating in another social event” (Rheingold 6). Jenna Lo Castro wrote about text messaging in the classroom. She found texting “is the easiest way to communicate when making a call is impossible” (www.carrollnewsonline.com).
This new availability has now been adopted by an older generation. It is not only allowing those in the workforce to balance family and careers, it is also allowing people to carry on simultaneous relationships. People committing infidelities are being caught by messages on their mobile phones at a growing rate.
Fortunately, texting is not only breaking up relationships, but it is also building relationships. Unlike the freedom texting gave Tokyo youth, it is bringing American youth and their parents closer together. According to a Cinuglar survey, “…parents who text message say they communicate more frequently with their children when they are away from home and 64 percent say that texting made their kids easier to reach” (textually.org).
Just in the last two decades what started as a trend in Tokyo and Finland’s youth has traded spaces in American mainstream. So, when you are trying to have a private moment and you get a phone call or text message, you have only yourself and the youth of Tokyo and Finland to blame. The technological trend they originally embraced has sometimes inconveniently allowed us to be in two places at one time.
Citations:
Rheingold, H. Smart Mobs. New York: Perseus, 2002.
Wireless News: Text Messaging. 18, March 2002. 10Meters.com 18, March. 2002
Mobiles Betray “Cheating” Italians. 15, September 2003. BBC News 15, September 2003
Survey Indicates That Text Messaging Improves Parent-Child Communications. 29, August 2006. Textually.org 29, August 2006.
Americans Get Texting As SMS Finally Catches On. Yea!. 30, August 2006. Textually.org 30, August 2006.
