Bear with me on this one. Having recently shifted my commuting from being in a car to using public transport, I have been using the new experience to observe how young people are using their mobile phones. It made me wide-eyed...
I heard recently that if you want somebody to use a 'device' in a learning environment, they must bond with it. Failure of them to do so means failure of the 'big idea' - probably funded by the tax payer. (I'm thinking of all those schemes where kids are given mobile phones and PDAs to talk to teachers to aid their learning). Some people think that giving a young person a PDA will turn them into some kind of super-organised, highly-communicative, mobile learner. I think not. Why?
Well, the young people of today already have a mobile phone (Apparently 5 million of them...). Giving them another will probably not help. In fact, the interesting study would be to see what happens to them if you took their phone away! Imagine: their social life would be in tatters. These new studies either need to investigate the mechanics of this bonding process, or accept it and work within the confines of what is already out there.
It is like the mobile phone is the the hamster of the new millenium for the young people of today. They are responsible for its well-being. They feed it (electricity). They groom it. They carry it in their pocket.
And both seem to live 2 years if you are lucky...
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