Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-xq6d9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-08T23:25:43.434Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Personal Portable Pedestrian: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Mizuko ITO
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Ever since rapid adoption of the mobile Internet in the late nineties, Japanese mobile phone use has been the object of international attention. Although other countries have led in terms of wireless technology development, mobile phone adoption rates, and certain usage patterns (such as political mobilization), Japan is considered by many to define the future of mobile phone use. In addition to high rates of adoption of Internet-enabled mobile phones, 3G infrastructures and camera phones, Japan has also been considered an incubator of popular consumer trends that integrate portable technologies with urban ecologies and fashions. In Smart Mobs, the book that catapulted mobile cultures into heightened visibility in Western public culture, Howard Rheingold (2002: xi) opens with a scene of texters eyeing their mobile phones as they navigate Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, allegedly the site of the highest mobile phone density in the world. A BBC reporter writes in a piece titled “Japan signals mobile future”: “If you want to gaze into the crystal ball for mobile technology, Tokyo is most definitely the place to come to” (Taylor 2003).

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 5 , May 2005 , e22
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

References

Fujimoto, Kenichi 2005 The Anti-Ubiquitous “Territory Machine”– The Third Period Paradigm: From “Girls’ Pager Revolution” to “Mobile Aesthetics”. In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Ito, M., Okabe, D., and Matsuda, M., eds. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habuchi, Ichiyo 2005 Accelerating Reflexivity. In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Ito, M., Okabe, D., and Matsuda, M., eds. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hjorth, Larissa 2003 [email protected]. In Japanese Cybercultures. Gottlieb, N. and McLelland, M., eds. Pp. 50–59. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ito, Mizuko, and Okabe, Daisuke 2005a Intimate Connections: Contextualizing Japanese Youth and Mobile Messaging. In Inside the Text: Social Perspectives on SMS in the Mobile Age. Harper, R., Palen, L., and Taylor, A., eds: Springer.Google Scholar
Ito, Mizuko, and Okabe, Daisuke 2005b Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structurings of Mobile Email Use. In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Ito, M., Okabe, D., and Matsuda, M., eds. Cambridge: MIT Press. Matsuda, Misa.Google Scholar
Ito, Mizuko, and Okabe, Daisuke 2005a Introduction: Discourses of Keitai in Japan. In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. Ito, M., Okabe, D., and Matsuda, M., eds. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ito, Mizuko, and Okabe, Daisuke 2005b Mobile Communications and Selective Sociality. In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese LIfe. Ito, M., Okabe, D., and Matsuda, M., eds. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nakajima, Ichiro, Himeno, Keiichi, and Yoshii, Hiroaki 1999 Ido-denwa Riyou no Fukyuu to sono Shakaiteki Imi (Diffusion of Cellular Phones and PHS and their Social Meaning). Tsuushin Gakkai-shi (Journal of Information and Communication Research) 16(3).Google Scholar
Okabe, Daisuke, and Ito, Mizuko 2003 Camera phones changing the definition of picture-worthy. In Japan Media Review.Google Scholar
Okada, Tomoyuki 2005 The Social Reception and Construction of Mobile Media In Japan. In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese lIfe. Ito, M., Okabe, D., and Matsuda, M., eds. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rheingold, Howard 2002 Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge: Perseus. Stone, Linda 2004.Google Scholar
Taylor, Richard 2003 Japan signals mobile future. In BBW News World Edition. London.Google Scholar
Yoshii, H., et al. 2002 Keitai Denwa Riyou no Shinka to sono Eikyou. Tokyo: Mobile Communications Kenkyuukai.Google Scholar