Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway

Introduction The mobile telephone is a big part of my life . A mobile telephone is actually an expression of your personality . These words of two teenaged female informants describe their relationship to the mobile telephone. Yet their use of the device is a recent phenomenon. None of the teens included in this analysis had had a mobile telephone for more than four years. What is surprising is the degree to which the mobile telephone has been integrated into their lives. It is not simply a security device, nor is it used only to coordinate everyday events spontaneously. It is used for a range of interaction and is also important as a symbol. Our chapter looks at how the mobile telephone's adoption has yielded new forms of interaction and especially coordination. We call these micro-coordination and hyper-coordination. In Norway, where the analysis has taken place, the mobile telephone is well entrenched. With more than half the population armed with at least one mobile phone, no other country, save Finland, has a higher per capita consumption. The penetration is even higher among certain groups. In one of the focus groups, five of nine boys had two mobile telephones. For example, as of May 2001, as many as 94% of the oldest teens have a mobile telephone (Ling, forthcoming). Owing to the recent yet explosive growth of mobiles, it is quite noticeable as a cultural phenomenon. All the informants, even the youngest ones, remember life before its popularization.