Digital Young

SMS as language “destroyer”

And, because SMS is considered to be a very fast function of cell phone, here are some crazy contests people really pay for to organize. In which purpose, nobody knows? Maybe just to prove who the fastest person is to have written a media message?!?

And how to write a SMS in Morse code. This is like a meta-function.

Now, everybody knows this guy. He’s Martin Cooper, the inventor of cell phone. And just another picture to show you the stages through which I passed having mobile phones:

I remember all of my cell phones. Those that I lost and hose that were stolen (in buses or at university). Steeling the other’s cell phone was almost a regular practice and people in Romania, in the late 90s, learned not to keep their phones outside of their pockets anymore, neither in a carrying case. When cell phone was still an expensive item and not a mass product, it was an exterior mark of financial success. Therefore, every person who had one made it very clear in the public space. It was an attraction for thieves. Two of my mobile phones got stolen: one during a class break, at the university, when I forgot my mobile in the seminar room, and the second time, in a very crowded bus, by some very skillful thieves. Today, everybody has a cell phone, which is described by the economic analysts as a mature market. Between Vodafone, Orange, Cosmote, Zapp and another competitor who announced its intentions in entering on mobile telephony segment, there will be a very strong competition. Not to make people buy mobile phones (as all almost have one), but the fight will be on value added services (Internet, fixed telephony etc).

But these are generalities. Regarding young people, the global trend of age decreasing when acquiring the first mobile phone is respected. In Bucharest mostly, kids of 9 or 10 years old have already a cell phone, but a “second hand” one, meaning that it was received from older persons (parents or brothers). Their “training” is done and realized with an old phone or not very fashionable. At that age, aspect and design is not that important.

Still, the need to have a mobile phone which is in trends and accordingly to their taste will overcome any parental restriction. Pre-teens (12-13 years) start to put money aside in order to buy themselves a new phone. The taste is constructed; their peers or the groups’ leaders have mobile phones which are different and through socialization, boys know that they want a masculine mobile phone and girls know that they want a feminine one. Older students are their role models regarding the images that they have about a mobile phone. From my research, I could outline a gender differentiated evolution in mobile phone practice; once they have a mobile phone, girls will buy (almost in all cases) the same brand. Why? Because, as they stated, they get familiar with that mark, meaning that the interior menu, the display of keys (knowing that all graphic signs are in their right place) determine them to buy a mobile (an advanced one) from the same brand. In opposition, boys get more exploratory; they like to change also the brand, to compare, to see which has a greater capacity, which has more functionalities etc. Therefore, choosing and having a mobile phone at teens becomes a very complicated process. But I will continue in another post with why do teens and young people use cell phone rather than another technological object.

Maybe you can tell me more about how you use your mobile phone or what happy or unhappy experiences you had with it. Share your knowledge here and we can comment about it.