Mobile Phones Let You Control Your Life
A new study out of the UK that watched how people actually used their mobile phones (as opposed to how they said they used their mobile phones) shows that people use their phones to control certain aspects of their lives. It allows people more flexibility in deciding when and how they will interact with the rest of the world as well as giving them new options to have some control over aspects that were previously impossible to control. For example, older women were shown to use the phone to check up on where their husbands were. Children used text messaging to ask friends for advice (though, they were opposed to text messaging with their parents). While the reporter seems to find these results surprising, they seem pretty straightforward. The mobile phone is a useful device (clearly), and all this really means is that people are integrating it more deeply into their lives.
