Mobile Panic -- Sorry it's late!

While reading “The representation of mobile youth in the post-colonial techno-nation of Korea” by Kyongwon Yoon, I was struck by the idea of mobility. These so-called mobile youth are “considered destructive to local culture” (p. 111) in the way that they use their mobile phones anywhere and anywhere and are on their phones so much that Yoon suggests that this consumption of mobile technology is affecting not only consumption patterns and literacy, but also is actually “precipitates the loosening of familial and communal bonding and causes pathological behaviours” (p. 111.) While this theory may go a little too far, it definitely has basis and can easily be applied to American youth.

This panic shouldn’t be just surrounding the mobile phone, though. Everything is mobile these days. Laptops are getting smaller, cell phones can do more and more things, wi-fi internet is available almost everywhere, and many of these mobile devices that recently come out (like the iPad) have more of a cultural and status value than function, but still are consumed. While we are sometimes panicking about the mobility of the generation, we are also facilitating it by buying into the culture and allowing the culture and the products a means to infiltrate our lives.