Mobile Dream Telling

Where are You?

Unlike landline conversations mobiles do not mediate between a known ‘backstage’ (the location of the speakers) and ‘front stage’ the virtual space of the conversation (Goffman).They require negotiations of various front stage performances, so roles cannot be assumed they have to be affirmed. This is why often the first question asked when someone calls a mobile is 'Where are you?'

Theorist Sadie Plant believes that mobile phones have created a new form of functioning of peoples minds which she refers to as bi-psyche. This double psyche is required to attend simultaneously to the real world that physically surrounds the speaker and the virtual world that is opened up through the phone he or she is holding. She raises questions around the effects of what can be seen as a schizophrenic existence or bi-psyche, that is a divorce between what one says verbally and what one does with one’s body. On a positive note mobile phones may benefit individuals in terms of psychological maturity, being that a person is subjected to different roles and manages these simultaneously.

posted by joanna @ 3:04 PM