SCAN: MOBILES
ENTRY POINT
The term in Japanese for cell phone is keitai denwa (
), literally meaning "portable telephone." As the keitai denwa's cultural and technological uses increased the "denwa" was dropped. Now mobiles in Japan are simply known as keitai (
), meaning "something you carry with you".
Look beneath the surface of this small media device, and you'll find massive shifts in an entire nation's cultural norms and values.
"I feel that it is time to be thinking about the position of the keitai in our society. Ideally, one would like to stop time and envision its future form. We have to think on the run. For those who have mastered the keitai, for those who use the keitai as a phone, for those who plan on the keitai, for those who are considering using a keitai and for those who develop and run keitai businesses -- I would like to say to all of these people, “Ask yourselves, ‘What is a keitai, really?" Kenji Kohiyama, "The meaning of Keitai," Japan Media Review.
Keitai have morphed into unclassifiable tools of daily life and communication, deeply intertwined with the needs of a tech-savvy youth culture. Keitai culture continues to reshape personal and public space in Japan in extreme ways.
Kenji Kohiyama, professor of Media and Governance at Keio University, is a leading researcher in the field of keitai. As director of Keitai Laboratory at Keio University, he addresses how "Technological change and social change are closely intertwined, ... [analyzing how] it is extremely important to perform interdisciplinary academic research on their mutual structural relationships."
Ichiyo Habuchi describes the always-on state of wireless closeness as a “telecocoon”: “Through controversial phone-dating websites or between text-message buddies, mobile media makes it possible for bonds to evolve between individuals who may never meet in real space, but who nonetheless share a vivid experience of disembodied closeness that follows them as they move through the world." Xeni Jardin, "How Mobile Phones Conquered Japan" – WIRED 8.19.06
KEITAI ARE RE-SHAPING . . .
PUBLIC SPACE: “The meanings surrounding keitai have shifted dramatically towards issues of regulation and control as youth became dominant actors in this space . . . young people’s bad keitai manners on trains were taken up widely in newspapers, magazines, and on TV, accordingly, a new social order was constructed around prohibition of keitai use in trains.” Daisuke Okabe and Mizuko Ito, “Keitai in Public Transportation," Japan Media Review.
FRIENDSHIPS: ”When asked how many numbers they may have in their phone, students would say, around a few hundred. …of those contacts, for 80 to 90 percent of them the keitai is the sole means of contact known. …every time you change your brand or model of keitai if you don’t notify others with that information you will lose a large portion of your friendships. In actuality there are some students who have changed their keitai number exactly for this purpose.” Kohiyama, "The Meaning of Keitai, 'Japan Media Review.
FAMILY: "A mother who has mastered the keitai is constantly staying in communication with the family and consolidating information. Although they are not at home, they are connected by the keitai. In these types of families it is common that the mother’s keitai is shared among the family. That is to say, that the mother’s keitai is placed in a designated area and whoever is nearby answers the phone when it rings." Kohiyama "The Future of Keitai," Japan Media Review
.
read more: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, The MIT Press, Cambridge. 2006.
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