Stereotyped Observations of Mobility ? Kees Winkel ? Blog ...

(Taken from my thesis ?Mobile Behavior as a Behavioral Object of Conditio Humana?)?Let us consider some of the effects of the use of the mobile phone on our society. Just walk in a street of a town, wait at a bus stop, sit in a train or wait for a plain to board: big chance what you will see (and hear) is people staring at handheld mobile phones, not necessarily talking in the phone, as many of those devices also function as very small communication computing devices. According to Benson, ?this major change in human behaviour has come about within a remarkably short time, but its implications need to be considered. Many people have willingly taken this option of continuous communication; and many more have been forced to accept it as a condition of their employment? (Benson 2011). And, to be constantly available, for instance in work-related issues, make the employee find himself in a changed role since the days before the breakthrough of the mobile phone; there is no excuse anymore not to be addressable at any given moment during the twenty four hours of a day. ?Even while making a meal at home, or travelling on the bus, one might be interrupted by a business call? (Benson, 2011).

It is a common sight in Dutch cities to see young girls, in the age scope of, say, 15 to 25, walking in a more or less hastened tempo, fiercely avoiding eye contact with their surroundings. In their hands they all carry a Blackberry and while on their path, they very regularly watch their Blackberry with a facial expression that suggests the expectation of a very, very important telephone call. Observing this particular group of female adolescents one may very well distinguish more communality in the group?s nones. If not inspecting their communication artifact, he girls all carry their Blackberry well in range of the observers? scope. Skeptics may add extra artifacts to visualize the group. Our girls mainly have long blond and slick hair. Their feet are covered in elephant-shaped booties with a brand name that stands for ugly. When less than, give or take 18?C, they may wear one specific brand of coat of the type that has a fur brim at the hood. When moving from one place to another, the girls drive a certain brand of, preferably, custom made motor scooter of Italian make. Commonly, the girls are observed to be of ethnic Dutch origins and in many cases, they belong to milieus of middle to higher social status.
In recent years, we have observed a rather interesting movement, a true example of what we may call an attempt of social mobility; an interesting case as it deals also with the mobile device; Blackberry and other peer group-connoted artifacts (such as specific brands of bags and baseball caps, apparels and garments, perfumes and accessories).
The movement is observed in groups of ethnic minorities, mainly of Moroccan and Turkish descent. Adolescents in these groups are of third and fourth generation and socio-political discourse claims a concern regarding the perception of identity of these people; it is currently a popular believe in The Netherlands that these people perceive themselves as neither true Moroccan (or Turkish) in a cultural sense of the word, nor do they feel truly Dutch. In this context it is relevant to mention that vast majorities in these ethnical minorities are of lower social status milieus.
One observation in this context is that groups of Moroccan adolescent girls ?dress up? not only as their all-Dutch peers but also even exaggerate the outfitting and the associated behavior.
Obviously some of the behavior may be explained in the context of general adolescent behavior, regardless of culture. Otherwise one may argue that certain behavior is due to the desire to move from a certain sphere an ethnical adolescent find herself in (or himself for that matter) to a socially higher appreciated sphere.

In the context of (social) mobility, Blackberry appears to be an important artifact for adolescent groups in terms of ?growing up? and intergenerational social mobility, at least in The Netherlands although one may question the true relevance when observing the mobile OS (Mobile Operating System) statistics in the region; it is clear that Blackberry has only limited market share with Apple?s iOS and Google?s Android as supreme market owners currently.
An interesting question rises: what makes Blackberry specifically so interesting for these groups of users? An article in Het Parool dating 10 April 2010 may bear some answers.
Amongst adolescents in Amsterdam, Blackberry, especially business-type devices of the brand were most popular, even exceeding iPhone. According to a spokeswoman of KPN?s youth brand Hi, Ping with which one can send and receive free of charge messages unlimitedly, was the magic application that did it all. Back in 2010, Ping was a Blackberry-specific application; if one would want to ping, one needed a Blackberry. According to the spokeswoman, this fact explained the business success.
However, since 2010, Blackberry has met some troublesome market challenges. Strangely enough, expected sales of Blackberry amongst adolescents in The Netherlands apparently still seem significant .

Ethnicity might thus be understood as a status marker that differentiates between groups and individuals. As we have mentioned above, immigrants and ethnic minorities often belong to the most deprivileged socioeconomic categories in the societies where they live. It might though be hard to tell how much of an immigrant?s disadvantage that springs from him or her being labeled as different in terms of ethnicity, and how much is related to his or her class position, a class position that often changes through migration as such: downward mobility from the position in the country of origin to the country of settlement is common (Portes and Zhou, 1993). When disadvantage in terms of lacking opportunities to upward mobility is reproduced in the second and even third generation, it is even more likely that discrimination is involved. In this way, ?symbolic? distinctions between ethnicities come to have concrete socioeconomic consequences for those who are shut out from good job opportunities because of factors such as their names or looks. Once again, the categories of class and ethnicity are often entwined .

The exceptional popularity of the cell phone among youth can be linked back to their need for an individual identity, maintenance of friendship networks, and emancipation from family ties. Moreover, as Geser (2004) points out, without possessing fixed addresses and stationary resources, cell phone connection is the only thing that anchors them to the society. Ling (2002) states that the use of the cell phone helps define adolescents vis-?-vis older generations. Its real impact is in terms of its ability to define adolescents? identity. The ?emancipation? of adolescents from their parents is a contributing factor to the formation of their identity. H?flich & R?ssler (2002) state that adolescents in order to challenge the social world of adults and to show resistance to it, thereby strengthening a subculture as well as constructing an identity, sometimes use the obtrusiveness of cell phones in a provocative manner. Besides the emancipation from adults and maintenance of friendship networks, cell phones contribute to identity assertion by being highly personal devices, with a vast scope for further personalization. Pertierra (2005) reports the sentiment that the cell phone as a personal device is a style statement .

The question of whether the cell phone is seen as a symbol of status within the adolescent subculture has been dealt with in a number of studies. The unexpected rate at which cell phone technology has been developed and adopted has made it a very popular phenomenon, and as such it is no longer associated with prestige, as was the case only a few years ago (H?flich & R?ssler, 2002; Lorente, 2002). However, some studies indicate that the cell phone might in some ways still be a source of social prestige. For instance, the cell phone might act as the barometer of an adolescent?s social life in the amount of messages and calls he or she receives, thereby contributing to aspects of social prestige (Lobet- Maris & Henin, 2002, p. 110). Likewise, a significant percentage of adolescents in Finland who did not have a cell phone reported feeling left out of social interactions and sometimes felt pressured by friends to get a cell phone (Ling, 2004) .

?Wireless communication is changing the way people work, live, love and relate to places?and each other?, says Andreas Kluth In The Economist;s Special Report on Mobility . Urban nomads have started appearing only in the past few years. According to Kluth, modern nomads have a lot in common with their ancestors in the desert; nomads carry only what the need stricktly to survive during their travels. All the rest can be gathered at oases or other ? temporary ? dwellings. Modern nomads do not carry paper. They have all their documents in their laptop or, better, somewhere in the cloud. Kluth furthermore enlightens us on the fact that e.g. Google executives travel only with their iPhone and a Blackberry: ?if ever the need arises for a large keyboard and some earnest typing, they sit down in front of the nearest available computer anywhere in the world, open its web browser and access all their documents online? (Economist 2008).

Like their antecedents in the desert, they are defined not by what they carry but by what they leave behind, knowing that the environment will provide it. Thus, Bedouins do not carry their own water, because they know where the oases are. Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don?t even bring laptops. Many engineers at Google, the leading Internet company and a magnet for nomads, travel with only a BlackBerry, iPhone or other ?smart phone
As a species, Ms. Turkle thinks, we run the risk of letting the permanent wireless social clouds that surround us steal part of our nature

tagged with: mobility, stereotype, ethnicity, blackberry

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