Mobile Email: Solutions For A Lonely Person
from the why-the-Japanese-use-mobile-email dept
For a while, it was popular to look to wireless internet adoption in Japan to get an idea of what it would be like in the US. Some people thought it was a great model to study, while others felt that cultural differences made it difficult to translate success from there over to the US. IDG has a column written by a Japanese writer trying to explain why text messaging between mobile phones is so popular in Japan. The summary (as far as I can tell) is that it’s an easier way for shy people to communicate and to waste time. The best quote in the article: “Before the invention of the wireless Internet, people on a train must’ve been bored to death, that’s why they needed to do things like, reading books.” Throughout the article, though, you can certainly see the cultural issues in Japan that has made text messaging so popular, and it’s unclear if the same factors will have an impact in the US. A lot of the second half of the article talks about lonely people making connections with other lonely people using their mobile phones. In the US, I think this is already being done over the regular internet, so I doubt that particular factor will have much influence on wireless internet adoption. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the wireless internet won’t catch on here, but Japan might not be the perfect model to study.
Comments on “Mobile Email: Solutions For A Lonely Person”
Hmmmm...
I personally can’t stand cell phones or email (but have both becuase of work requirements). As it is I feel I get way too much email. The cell phone invades on “my time”. I want to be able to get away from people and just relax. I want to leave my job at 5pm (which never happens) and go home. I want work to stay at work. My friends can call me at home when I get there. There’s nothing they have to say (or I have to say) that can’t wait an hour. I feel that technology has completely taken away personal time. Now our jobs come home with us and go on vacation with us. Enough is enough.
Re: Hmmmm...
To the prior comment, I have a simple solution for you, turn the cell phone off during your personal time and don’t check email at the time, it can’t get any simpler than this.
Re: Re: Hmmmm...
I’d love too but I can’t. I’m required to be on-call until 10pm (24 hours if it’s my turn to carry the beeper)/ 7 days a week.
I just can’t figure out why people would want to stay in this “connected” of there own free will.
Re: Re: Re: Hmmmm...
Well, then your problem is with your job requirements – not the technology…
cultural differences (or not)
Mike said that there appear to be cultural issues which have made text messaging huge in Japan. Well, text messaging is massive here in the UK (especially with schoolkids) and I can’t see a whole lot of cultural parallels between the Japanese and the British.
I’ve never understood why txting is so big in the UK, but the USA doesn’t seem to have clicked into it in the same way (if we’re considering ‘cultural issues’ then I’d see UK/USA being closer than UK/Japan).
Re: cultural differences (or not)
Mike said that there appear to be cultural issues which have made text messaging huge in Japan. Well, text messaging is massive here in the UK (especially with schoolkids) and I can’t see a whole lot of cultural parallels between the Japanese and the British.
Right. I’m not saying that the only reason texting will catch on is the reason it’s caught on in Japan. I was just saying looking at why it’s caught on in Japan probably won’t be as useful for trying to figure out why it hasn’t caught on in the US.
However, maybe it makes more sense to look at why texting has caught on in the UK, since (as you pointed out) the cultural issues are much closer.
Re: Re: cultural differences (or not)
Here in the US, SMS is not interoperable between carriers (though there have been recent efforts).
If I have a Sprint phone, and my friend has a Verizon phone, it takes a certain technical inclination to know that you can bridge the gap by going thru your friends phone via its email address equiv. Not a condusive atmosphere.
Re: Re: Re: cultural differences (or not)
Actually, over the past couple months, the interoperability has gotten much better. I use Sprint PCS, and I have now easily sent and received messages to and from people using Verizon, AT&T, Worldcom, and Voicestream just using phone numbers… The only major one I haven’t tried yet is Cingular, and I believe that works as well.
Re: Re: Re:2 cultural differences (or not)
In the UK interoperability has been there from the start. In addition, texts used to be much cheaper than a mobile call – 1/3 of the cost or, from one operator, free. Thus it caught on relatively quickly, and with no push from the networks who never saw it coming and still don’t understand how it happened. Sound familiar?