Lately I find myself cuddling my mobile phone, even when I am not using it. The hot weather requires girls like me to wear little and most often pocketless clothes, which means that I have no place for my mobile. I end up just holding it in my hand like an extended part of my arm, all day.
Although I usually claim that the shy Scandinavian is a category of its own when it comes to mobile phone behavior, it seems as we are quite related to the British who create little virtual 'phone booths' on the street. My own studies in this area shows that SMS is popular because it is discreet and polite, not necessarily fast like a short phone call, which leads me to think that Scandinavians don't use voice mail that much either. Personally I hate if people leave messages just because I missed the call, because the process of listening to it is much more tedious than just returning the call. Voicemail is definitely a leftover from when caller id did not exist. I even have friends who start their message by saying 'Hi Louise this is ... It is now Saturday, 3pm and...' I mean, the machine just told me what time it is but now I am sure it was not lying...
I find mobile phone behavior interesting to observe; I do it everyday, but I don't think the categorization done in the study above is specific to countries and cities. I think the bigger difference is found within subcultures; seeing how my 15 year old cousin uses her phone differs significantly from my own use, which again is different from people with other types of work. One exciting thing when making new friends is always to see what kind of phone habits they have. Do they answer your SMS immediately or do they consider it to be polite as long as they answer within the rest of the day? Do they leave voice messages or just hang up when they get my recorded voice? Do they put little blinky smilies at the end of the message? Thinking about this, I realize that I put a lot of interpretation into this behavior, so next time you SMS me or forget to, watch out, I might put other interpretations into it than you do!
Posted by Louise at August 12, 2004 02:47 PMUps...I just remembered that my last sms to you (answering a question from you) was a simple 'yes' - thats it, no smiley or 'looking forward to seeing you soon'...I hope you realise that sometimes the sms probably reflect a given situation at the senders end, and in no way reflect the relationship you have with the sender. I was in a hurry, and writing long sms'es while driving is not very safe. You got the info that you needed and fortunately I was able to give you a 'real smiley' 45 min. later ;o)
Hope you are in the 'zone' and the writing comes along as you hope.
Me? Just popped in to read my mail, I'm too busy relaxing and planning to se friends and relatives to even think of that thing I usually call work!
See ya' in a few weeks (I'd hate to corrupt you with good social ideas and plans, but when you are finished working you can count on being part of the fun again)...
- WE HAVN'T FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU!!!!.................yet ;o)
/R
Posted by: Rikke at August 12, 2004 08:14 PM"The hot weather requires girls like me"
I am glad to see you use the word "require" here. I thinks so too ;-)
Posted by: Christian Hagel at August 14, 2004 10:21 AM