Communication Glues Society Together

Society is elusive. Where is it? We instinctively locate it in joint activities; the way people connect with and contact others constructs the culture and society. In many societies, digital tools such as mobile terminals can mediate a remarkable proportion of human-to-human interaction. For example, in Finland, the adoption rate of mobile phones is more than 60 percent and still rising. Among young people aged 15 to 24 years, the rate is 90 percent. In the Finnish society today, there is a prevailing expectation that people have mobile phones—a social norm has been born, in other words, according to which we should be reachable most of the time.^[1] Other expectations have been more subtly conditioned by the fact that many fixed services are being offered in digital and mobile forms, such as e-banking and electronically transmitted news. Television programs offer audiences a chance to participate via short messages from their mobile phones.

Digital products have assumed an important role as channels by which we reach out to other people. Thus the way in which the product mediates communication becomes crucial. How the product is used, by whom, and in what kind of situations is not purely in the hands of the users but is shaped by the designers who have preconceived its use.^[2] Consequently, ease of use is key in new communications tools, to allow equal access to communications across a society irrespective of individual differences in technical literacy.

Short Message Service (SMS)

A service used in a mobile communication system by which a user can send or receive short messages—up to 160 characters—in textual form. SMS, as it is generally known, has become widely popular in Europe and the Far East since 1997, although the technology has been around since 1992. In November 2001, 26 billion text messages were sent over the global GSM network during that month only. Most SMS messages are sent person-to-person as simple text (e.g., “Meet me at the bar, 17:30”), but SMS also supports mobile information services such as news, sports, stocks, weather, horoscopes, chat, notifications, and downloadable ring tones and icons.

How the structures of the user interface force or enable individual users to communicate in a coherent way is particularly interesting. In a way, the user interface launches the terms or the grammar for a communication culture. For example, if SMS text messages offer only 160 characters, the communication is shaped accordingly. In advanced mobile phone markets, as in Scandinavia, Germany, or the Philippines, a whole new culture has been born around text messages as a response to the limitations 160 characters impose. Even though this restricted form of messaging may be criticized for its degraded functionality and user interface, it has obviously met its users’ needs successfully. The examples from the Philippines show how the limitations have actually helped create a new kind of shorthand; for instance, “CU L8R” stands for “See you later.” This form of compression lets users fit more information into the available space. Restrictions set by the product designers are thus turned into a starting point for creative new expressions. Vocabulary model-based solutions (see Chapter 7 for an introduction to these) to improve text entry can speed up writing while the users stick to the standard language, but as we’ve seen, they don’t. So, by introducing intelligent text entry algorithms in the belief that we’re enhancing the messaging experience, are we actually homogenizing and restricting the users’ creative expression?

It is not only exciting new forms of language that make SMS so relevant for social analysis. The meaning of SMS lies in the possibility of reaching other people wherever and whenever, and in a more direct, personal, and unobtrusive way than ever before. Users can overcome spatial and temporal limitations, which gives them more reach over their environment. Real-time communication is also more spontaneous, and the feeling of closeness is supported even though users are physically separated. It can be said that conceptions of time and space are transformed by use of the mobile phone. This more flexible relation to time and space is expressed, for example, in last-minute postponements of meetings. It is possible to plan less and improvise more.

In sum, the user interface, the features, and the applications—the whole product—organizes communication and thus the society, insofar as the society resides in popular activities. It both supports and reproduces social relations that are in a sense embodied in the user interface. In this way, material and virtual artifacts such as mobile phones both create and reflect social interaction. This, too, makes them worth closer scrutiny.

The new reachability has altered the nature of everyday life and society. Even though it was not obvious at the start, there has been a real need for silent, asynchronous, brief, and informal communications between persons and groups. We simply lacked the means. Responding to that latent need has created a new kind of societal bond. In this way, mobile phones with their user interfaces are a determining factor in constructing the way a mobile information society communicates.

Of course, the role of text messages has been recognized by the industry. People who prefer textual information as the main carrier for conversation can now choose terminals that enable longer messages. In the latest phone models, text messages can be sent to many recipients at once, and they accommodate more characters, which permits the use of formal language instead of short acronyms. Naturally, using a new kind of language may be more fun, and people who have enjoyed coining new terms and cryptic formulations instead of writing full sentences will probably keep doing so. It is up to users to decide which kind of discourse they prefer. The product offer has to support different kinds of users with varying tastes, although it is evident that limiting characters limits expression overall.

How, then, to research these new communication phenomena? Should it be interaction researchers or marketing researchers who delve into questions of use?

^[1]T. Kopomaa, The City in Your Pocket: Birth of the Mobile Information Society. Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2000.

^[2]S. Woolgar, “Technologies as Cultural Artefacts,” in Information and Communication Technologies. Visions and Realities, Dutton, ed. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996.