Implications of Mobility: The Uses of Personal Communication Media in Everyday Life

Abstract

This study examined the impact of mobile communications on interpersonal relationships in daily life. Based on a nationwide survey in Japan, landline phone, mobile voice phone, mobile mail (text messaging), and PC e-mail were compared to assess their usage in terms of social network and psychological factors. The results indicated that young, nonfamily-related pairs of friends, living close to each other with frequent faceto-face contact were more likely to use mobile media. Social skill levels are negatively correlated with relative preference for mobile mail in comparison with mobile voice phone. These findings suggest that mobile mail is preferable for Japanese young people who tend to avoid direct communication and that its use maintains existing bonds rather than create new ones. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00023.x Since their rapid growth in popularity in the late 1990s, mobile phones have become an almost essential part of daily life. Currently, mobile phones are also used for purposes other than voice communication. In some countries, there has been a trend for young people to create their own unique subcultures in which they communicate predominantly through SMS (short message service), or by e-mail over their mobile phones (Ishii, 2004; Kasesniemi & Rautiainen, 2002; Skog, 2002). To explore the implications of media mobility, this study compared the impact of four types of personal communication media—landline phone, mobile voice phone, mobile mail, and PC e-mail—on interpersonal relationships, based on a representative survey. More specifically, egocentric network data were analyzed to examine the factors affecting the use of these media in daily life. In this study, empirical data were collected in Japan where cutting-edge mobile technologies (e.g., ‘‘i-mode’’ and 3-G phones) are widely used and where a unique mobile communication culture is prevalent among the youth. Henceforth, the term ‘‘mobile mail’’ will be used to refer to both SMS and e-mail via mobile phones because in Japan, SMS and e-mail