In the lobby of NetPrice Co. in Tokyo, eager salespeople from cosmetic companies to electronics manufacturers emerge daily to peddle their wares in the hope of sealing big sales contracts.

Their briefcases filled with sample products and big smiles on their faces, these salespeople are not visiting their wholesale agent or lubricating their big retail channels. They are pouncing on mobile Internet sales company whose mainstay is selling goods to customers via mobile phones.

As e-commerce in the mobile sphere expands — the market for selling goods in Japan alone was estimated at $1.8 billion (200 billion yen) in 2004, up 45 percent from 2003, according to Mobile Content Forum, an industry body — companies that sell goods over the mobile phone are proving their unique marketing power, and as market specialists say, establishing a new frontier in the art of marketing. Mobile goods sales now account for roughly 10 percent of the entire Internet sales business.

Mobile retailers include companies like NetPrice, Bandai Networks, Index Corp, and Zappallas, who are specialty mobile e-commerce firms, mobile content firms, or other forms of Internet companies eager to tap into the rich vein of the mobile sales business.

NetPrice, for example, has seen sales grow rapidly from about $14 million (1.6 billion yen) in 2002 to $95 million (10.6 billion yen) in 2005 with profits climbing from $2 million (228 million yen) in 2002 to $4.5 million (497 million yen) in 2005 mainly on revenue expansion from mobile commerce. Major Internet players like Yahoo Japan, Index Corp, and Rakuten, the leading online shopping malls are setting up sales sites dedicated to mobile users and catching up fast. Rakuten garnered good mobile sales –around $30.6 million (3.4 billion yen) in last December alone — up 150 percent from the same month the previous year.

As the mobile goods business proliferates, analysts say marketers are discovering advantages unique to the mobile medium. For one thing, mobile buyers respond better to sales pitches on their phones than on PCs not least because mobile is a more personal medium and is less polluted with spam and viruses.

“People on mobile have twice as much response rate as people on the PC,” said the manager of the mobile commerce team at Bandai Networks Co., a mobile content company that began selling goods ranging from clothes to toys in 2003. “On the PC, people just accumulate incoming mail in the mailbox and don’t touch them.”

Many young Japanese keep their phone with them all day long and stare at the sizable, high-resolution screen every 10 to 15 minutes. “Mobile as a medium is influential to consumers because of the long exposure,” said Taku Nishikawa, analyst at Nomura Securities.

Analysts and marketers say that buying is a psychological behavior and mobile marketing has a better chance of capturing moments when consumers are inclined to buy on impulse. The mobile often encourages consumers’ spur buying, and that allows them to market 24 hours a day.

Mobile marketing is developing a new frontier in the field of marketing by converging the real and the virtual. Mobile marketers, for example, make use of QR code — a replacement for bar code that deciphers the content much quicker — which is printed along with advertisements in magazines, posters and on tray mats in fast food restaurants. Most cameras on cell phones today act as QR-code readers and allow the user to jump to the mobile home page the code designates.

Imagine a young consumer lying in his bed reading a magazine. He spots an attractive designer T-shirt for a decent price and vaguely forms the idea of buying it. Conveniently, his cell phone is lying right beside him, as is most often the case with young Japanese. With a quick snap of the shutter on his camera phone, which captures the QR code, he is on to the “buy” screen where just a few more clicks will complete his purchase, all without causing him to move or even change his posture on the bed.

Meanwhile, consider a scenario in which he had to get up, leave his bed, go to his PC and wait until the machine boots up, and today’s finicky and impatient Japanese consumer would have passed on the opportunity to buy the merchandise, until the next time he’s presented with a product to buy impulsively.

Nao Ito, executive officer at NetPrice said that 40 percent of purchases made over mobile phones come via a QR code entry. Using media like magazines and tray mats has been an effective way of marketing goods because they capture consumers during their spare time, he said.

Ito said printing QR codes and the simplified version of URLs made up of several letters has been an effective way of cross-promoting products. His company recently teamed up with Tokyu Railways, which operates major commuter lines in Tokyo, so that NetPrice could print the simplified URL — made up of 4 or 5 letters or numbers — on ads hanging from the ceilings of the train. Mobilers notice the ads and access Web sites by typing in the letters. “Time on the train is a dead space. The question is, how do you turn this dead time into time for shopping?,” Ito asked.

The strength of mobile sales lies in combining the day-to-day, on-the-go situation with the online experience. This happens when people impressed with goods displayed on the screen want to recommend them to friends standing nearby, something people cannot do as easily with their PC. Mobile marketers say that clients, especially women, sometimes buy something via mobile immediately after they see their friends show up with impressive accessories or clothes.

Xavel, Inc., a rapidly growing mobile goods sales firm, has been increasing sales partly by organizing fashion shows and allowing the audience to purchase the items on display that they want immediately.

Just as mobile buyers react sensitively to mobile retailers’ pitches, so do the sellers attune themselves to consumers’ demands. Yasushi Takenaga, manager of business development at NetPrice, said he has traveled all over Japan scouring for products that his mobile clients might want. That includes a trip to Okinawa to procure Awamori, a type of shochu unique to Okinawa, and a cheesecake served only in a small Russian restaurant in the northern prefecture of Iwate. The cheesecake became so popular among traveling customers that one impressed client asked NetPrice to sell it on its mobile site. Such client requests are frequent, NetPrice officials said. “We consider ourselves buy agents for customers,” said Ito.

Marketing experts say that mobile retailing is demonstrating the typical strength of relational marketing. It allows the vendor to develop relationships with clients in a variety of ways, including one-on-one, personalized marketing.

Time sensitivity is also the name of the game in mobile retailing. Two hours after a strong earthquake hit Miyagi prefecture last August, NetPrice had posted “earthquake goods” on its mobile site, such emergency food and flashlights. “The time the clients are thinking about it is the time to sell,” Ito said.

THE FUTURE OF KEITAI

Let’s look at the near future of the keitai. Of course what will actually happen is not known but taking hints from its recent movements I will give my own perspective on the matter. Because it concerns the near future, the results will be evident in the not so distant future. Please think along with me.

Peace of Mind and Safety

Relative to other countries Japan seems to be very demanding about our peace of mind and safety. From this perspective, let us think about the future of the keitai.

Along these lines, recent concerns have been focused on the safety of food and the safety of children. Due to various contributing factors in the former there is a high probability of the IC tag coming into widespread use. In short, because of such incidents as mad cow disease, consumers’ interest in historical information about their food has increased.

In order to attach information to food, the two-dimensional barcodes or IC tags are the most likely candidates. Due to cost, currently there are increasingly more examples of the barcode being used, but the IC tag will probably be aggressively used in the future as well.

Let’s sort through all of these factors and look at their relationship to the keitai. The two dimensional barcode uses the camera of a keitai for inputting the data. Another way of stating this is to say because the keitai camera was so widespread, the use of two-dimensional barcodes in the supermarkets increased. This relationship would still be true even if IC tags were used. That is to say that the keitai will be the mainstay for information reader display devises. The reason behind this is not only that the keitai has an interface for both two dimensional barcodes and IC tags, behind a keitai there is a network. In many cases there is no need to connect up with the network and the keitai alone does the job. However, examples of situations where a network may be needed may include downloading information to a keitai from a network for the purpose of upgrading a system or in situations where it would be necessary to process information through a network because the information cannot be handled by a single keitai. And in situations where especially detailed information is required, a system where you can link up to a network in order to get the information would be needed.

The same as the above can be said about a keitai used as a credit card, a so-called “wallet keitai.” A keitai is not needed merely to pay for items; a card is all that is needed for that. However, in order to withdraw funds from your bank or receive certificates or records of payments and to format that into database form would require connecting with a network.

I believe all of these are the forerunners of the ubiquitous world system. In brief, the scenario is that there will be vehicles interspersed over a broad area that are able to transmit information for the keitai and the information source for these interspersed vehicles will have a very high functionality level. That source of information will develop side by side with the interspersed vehicles and the network that supports all of this will be in place. The probability of this scenario being realized increases as the heightened demand for peace of mind and safety increases.

The next most pressing topic with regards to peace of mind and safety is the safety of children. The problems concerning the issues with the keitai and emergency calls to 911 have only gotten worse (the caller’s location cannot be ascertained). In Korea, measures are being taken to keep the keitai from being disconnected once an emergency call is made.

Positioning information as it relates to privacy is very subtle and there is an aspect that will not allow for it to be easily incorporated. For this reason the predominant applications that are being developed are ones such as car navigation systems that will capture your position. However, the demand for peace of mind and safety is extremely strong and along with the backing of technological support it will most likely bring about a large shift in the handling of the positioning information of others. I mean by this that the focus will shift to applications where a third party will be able to know the keitai user’s position for the purposes of emergency calls and keeping track of children. Of course for this to be actualized not only is the technology needed, but a socially agreed upon system will need to be put in place through laws relating to the handling of information.

UIM Cards

The SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card that has come to be broadly used with the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) throughout the world, along with a few functional enhancements, has finally arrived in Japan as the UIM (User Identity Module) card. It is a memory card containing data about the user. A keitai can only be used by inserting this card. This inherently has an element that changes the meaning of a keitai. In other words, we think that a keitai belong to ourselves alone, but in actuality it is not limited only to my use. What actually belongs to me alone is the UIM card (I am not the owner of the keitai but have the right to be a user). Putting it another way, this will make it possible to use other people’s keitai. This has the potential of making things very interesting in the future. That is to say, just as one purchases clothing, a keitai user will have many keitais and use whichever depending on the situation at will. The variety of keitais in our country is so limited today that it is a pitiful situation. But there may come a time when depending on the day you may choose a keitai with complicated functions, or one that looks sharp, or one the size of a watch.

It is as though the UIM card made portions of the keitai separable. Now we can think of many different portions that can be separated. The battery is one of them. The face of the keitai for fashion purposes can be another. It is also possible for the wireless portion alone to be separated. An example of this is when a keitai card or PHS card is placed in your PDA.

When thinking along these lines, the functions that are chosen to be included in the UIM card become very important. Currently the basic functions for standard usage and a small database (for telephone numbers) are included. However that alone may not do enough to support the lifestyle of using a number of differing keitais. A keitai contains a lot of personal information about the user. Especially the telephone contacts list, as stated earlier, is not merely for the purposes of making phone calls but it is a database by which a decision is made whether to answer a call or not. In this way if the information that is placed in the detachable memory is substantial, a large transformation in the role of the keitai is likely. An idea has also been put forward to make batteries a type of public communal property where one can exchange the used up battery for a charged one for a small fee. The choice of using a certain keitai based on the functions that are loaded into a card has the potential of leading us into areas that we have not even conceived yet.

Fixed Rate Systems

Packaged plans with fixed rates are becoming popular. It depends on the rate plan but the incorporation of fixed rate plans will greatly influence the way a keitai is used. The greatest difference will be with the expectations of communications businesses. Up until now the idea is to have people use their keitai as much as possible however if the fixed rate system is put in place this foundation may fall apart. In short, it may switch to “try not to use it as much as possible.” If the keitai is excessively used because of the fixed rate, in spite of the same rates, the number of support facilities will have to be regularly increased. If the customer would limit their use of he keitai or the package hours of their own accord, nothing would make the businesses happier. When on an underground train, because the keitai phone cannot be used, most people are e-mailing or are connected to the Internet for news information. These all are using up the keitai resources. The communications businesses would be grateful if everyone would just watch a television program during this time.

I don’t know if things will go in the direction mentioned here but from an extreme perspective, I have a feeling that it looks as though people will fall away from network gaming that looked to be so promising and will be more interested in such things like television reception that uses very little of the network resources. And again regarding the games, they will most likely move in the direction of single unit type games or those that do not require networking such as linking with a nearby person through Bluetooth. Where the fixed rate system will end up and how it will spread will greatly influence the future of the keitai.

The relationship with the wireless LAN will change as well. The PHS system can be used in the public mode or the private mode. This is so that at your home or your workplace the phone can be used at no cost. In comparison, the keitai however has no “private” mode. It still costs money even if used at your workplace. For this reason a link with the wireless LAN is being pursued. However, if the fixed rate system is used, whether the keitai is used or not would make no difference, as long as there are no functional problems, the users will freely use it all they wish.

This relationship may seem to entail a self-defeating element to the phone operator. In thinking along these lines of the future, the keitai’s move toward broadband and the fact that the wireless frequency will go up, will be difficult for the waves to enter enclosed spaces. In other words, there will be more indoor areas where the keitai will not be able to be used. For this reason it will be necessary to link the keitai with the business LAN or a wireless LAN system. And just as the wireless LAN becomes necessary, from the customer’s perspective it would look as though keitai would be unnecessary and hence, seemingly, let us say, self-defeating. In reality I’m sure it will not play out in this manner but the linkage will be well-coordinated. However, as can be seen, it is certain that the fixed rate system will have ramifications in many various areas. Above all, as stated earlier, those ramifications are going to be firmly based on the established rate system. Our focus will be on how it will unfold.

Linking/Uniting Communication and Broadcasting

As stated earlier in the Fixed Rate System section, I sense a small amount of potentiality with this specific service through which digital broadcast can be received on the keitai. It will lead into great opportunities, greatly influencing the path to uniting or linking broadcasting with communications. Recently the Softbank, Rakuten, bought a professional baseball team and is broadcasting their games live on the Internet. The Softbank requires a membership with Yahoo!BB (broadband) and has an annual service fee of $900 (100,000 yen) To what degree this type of service will even take root is another factor that will influence the structure of communications and broadcasting linking up.

From the Internet side of the matter, should the powerful means of transmission called broadcast waves become available for use, there will not only be Internet broadcasting but it will provide a groundwork delivery system for the Internet to send the same information simultaneously to multiple people. In which case, it will most likely cause an upheaval in the education and publishing businesses that are content-based and will be effective in communicating emergency information. It may be also able to be used for the concurrent changeover of security system secret keys, and I’m sure various other new uses will be born out of it.

Part of the content of public broadcasting involves “news” which plays a very important social role. I truly doubt that this role will ever go away.

However, has the time not come, for the purposes of moving forward in uniting the Internet and communication, to conceptually separate from this role system from the broadcast content?

Fourth Generation (4G) Mobile Communication

The third generation mobile communication (3G) has just begun to take root and they are already talking of the next generation. It is of course necessary to go about technology development with an eye for the future, but there are other reasons behind this as well. 3G is the world’s first standardized system. Many months and years went into for its development and standardization. In other words, during the period the 3G system was being developed, there was not a strong Internet awareness at that time. It has an element about it that when it was finally completed time had already moved on.

The 4G, using a few hundred megabits/second transmission speeds and such features as “specialized personal terminals,” “seamless communications environment” and “information service customized to every situation” is being touted for the year 2010.

A “specialized personal terminal” is most likely a terminal that can be used discriminately depending on the situation similar to that of an enhanced form of the UIM card. A “seamless communications environment” means that in conjunction with the wireless LAN and the ubiquitous environment one would be able to transmit anywhere they are. This element will also be necessary to compensate for the shrinking transmission capable areas due to accelerated speeds. The “information service customized to every situation” seemingly means the transmission speed will be changeable; for example, to transmit slowly for mail but with no delay for phone transmission.

The attractiveness of such a system is that it is broadband. If in the same service areas where we now have keitai this type of transmission speeds were enabled, there would be a radical change in access type systems including that of the fixed line communications. In my mind, this would be a very difficult thing to accomplish, but I will expectantly wait nonetheless.

Well, leaving behind all of these movements, I would like to mention a few of my personal dreams for the 4G. People use their five senses and their brain to absorb information from the outside world and then process and understand it. I want help for this. If I point a keitai towards a living thing, it will tell me the name and species. If I point it towards food, it will tell me whether it is edible, or whether it tastes good. While just holding the keitai it will tell me my health condition and if I point it towards reading material or conversations taking place, it will translate them for me. In this way I would like for it play a supporting role to a human being’s five senses.

The Most Important Thing

The future of the keitai is broadening. Undoubtedly there are areas of concern, but it will probably move forward while absorbing those areas. There are many problems in this world that can’t be swept aside simply by saying it is “convenient.” It used to be a keitai was a luxury item. However, today, due to the ease of construction, low building costs and the declining prices of the keitai device itself there is a trend towards laying a nationwide network with the keitai. Keeping such matters in mind, we need to take a step back and reconsider the role of the keitai and to envision our dream for the future of the keitai.

The keitai (mobile phone) is like a toy box with lots of different media stuffed inside where one can pull out the one of your choice as if from a magician’s hat.

In this book I hope to look at the meaning of these and their interest they bring and to gain some understanding on these issues. For this reason, I will take up each of the various media that are in a keitai, the very thing that our country is leading the world in promoting, and investigate their purpose and potential.

The keitai is without question a fun media. That is not to say that it doesn’t have its dubious areas. However the keitai will most like continue to develop while absorbing all of these. I feel that it is time to be thinking about the position of the keitai in our society. Ideally, one would like to stop time and envision its future form. We have to think on the run. For those who have mastered the keitai, for those who use the keitai as a phone, for those who plan on the keitai, for those who are considering using a keitai and for those who develop and run keitai businesses — I would like to say to all of these people, “Ask yourselves, ‘What is a keitai, really?’”

People Who Use a keitai

Movements of the keitai in our country are drawing the attention of the world. This is because in our country the keitai has the two characteristics of being (1) extensively used by the younger generation and (2) the development of the Internet was so rapid. The keitai that is now being used by everyone, at its inception of service was used by only a handful of businessmen and the wealthy. Looking back on these times, let’s think about the purpose of the keitai by glimpsing into how the younger generation perceives the keitai and how it is being used.

Around the time the keitai denwa came out people who used a keitai denwa were called “nomads” or “information nomads.” When you look up the word “nomad” (the transliterated English term – no-ma-do) in the dictionary, you find “(1) yuhbokumin (the original Japanese term for a nomad people, literally translated “idle pasture people”); (2) a wandering people as opposed to people of permanent residency.” The differences in meaning between (1) and (2) is considerable. According to Tadao Umesao, “actually nomadism, speaking in ecological terms does not contain the concept of a “pasture” in the least . . . when an animal group (including humans) moves about walking in a given region seeking food, that is nomadism.”

In other words, yuhbokumin, are nomadic stock-farming people. In this discussion we will use the term ‘nomad,’ which I believe better communicates the concept of a moving people group. This is because when the term “information yuhbokumin” was used, it was used to mean a person who by merit of mastering the communication media, including that of the mobile phone, did not stay in one location to carry on business.

Why would a term like this come to be used in this symbolic manner? No doubt the primary reason is because the tool, the keitai, is a suitable tool for the nomadic concept; however that doesn’t seem to be the only reason. A nomad symbolizes someone who exists outside the boundaries of a fixed concept of a “country” that is the natural extension of a farm and the mere existence of such a one extinguishes the system of having a country. The logical extension of this is that the usage of the term nomad symbolizes setting aside the existing scholastic disciplines and by crossing over into this area the established powers are demolished and new ideas are brought in. No doubt people marveled when first coming into contact with those few in a train who used their mobile phones once they hit the market. Probably among those people were those started to perceive business as outside of the preconceived concept of the “office.” Some feelings of newness also may have arisen or perhaps even feelings of fear towards the breaking down of these concepts. Most likely these were the implied meanings that birthed the terms “information yuhbokumin” and “nomads” at the time of their use.

What kind of changes to the society did these “nomads” create? At the time the term ‘nomad’ was being used, people were still calling the keitai a keitai denwa and those who had mastered it were only a few distinctive people. That is why it was accurate to say that they were like those who were tearing down the existing order. Nowadays when there is almost one keitai per person, we should be able to verify as to what kind of changes were actualized. Were our initial assumptions correct, and was the current state born out of the influences of these forerunners?

I am not a sociologist, so I am unable to analyze these factors in depth, but it is a fact that we can now “connect with someone at any time from anywhere.” In addition, by using not only the phone but together with the Internet, communication that is tailored to any situation can be carried out. In my case, I have all my e-mail forwarded to my keitai so that I can check it at any time. I even read my keitai’s newspaper. Most of my books I purchase online as well as my travel arrangements.

So what has changed? Saving the opinions of the younger generation for later, allow a middle-aged guy (me) to give my take on the matter. Certainly the number of things that I am able to do by myself has increased as well as the time that it takes to accomplish these things has decreased. However as a result, actually I have only become busier. But essentially nothing has changed. Then again, I am receiving feedback from the increased parameters of my physical and varied types of conduct, by which my movement patterns are then being affected, so that one could say that those are influences of the keitai and the Internet in my life. I can only say that they are quite right. In other words, it comes down to each individual’s problem as to how the free time is spent, supposedly created from the convenience; either taking in more information than before and remaining as busy as you were, or either spending it as leisure time. I’m sure that through the use of the keitai and the Internet there are those who have created a completely different work environment. However, no matter how many conveniences the traditional-type working person may gain, they are still work-oriented people. For example, it is now possible to do work at home. This means that it is now possible to use the time that was used for relaxing at home and divert it to work if necessary. A work-oriented person uses the fact that work no longer has to be conducted in that preconceived idea of the symbolic space called the “office” and takes his work home.

A “Callers First” World

The telephone was invented as means of mass media, such as broadcasting and television, however in our time, it has come to be used one-on-one as a personal media. Nevertheless, the current telephone media also has similar characteristics as that of the mass media. This is because the current telephone system makes it difficult for the receiver’s wishes to be reflected while the sender is prioritized, in this aspect it is no different than the mass media. We cannot deny that this aspect makes it easier for others to invade an individual’s living space with the telephone.

Undoubtedly the physical intrusion of others in actuality (a visit) has been mitigated through the custom of making an appointment due to the proliferation of the telephone. However, on the other hand, because there is no need for physically moving, access has been made easier. As a result, not even taking into consideration prank callers, the problematic aspect with the telephone media is only highlighted by the uninvited intrusion of a private individual’s living space through various solicitous or late night calls.

There is a change that is about to take place in this world of callers first however. This is because caller identification has now become the norm. When asking a student, many will say they ‘won’t pick up’ if the caller is not in their database, or if the number is not displayed. In short, the time for the receiver to choose their callers has come. One may ask how it is that such a custom became the social norm. It is because of the increase in prank callers and phone call scam artists that have abused the callers first world that this custom has become a position for a countermeasure.

The Basis for the Younger Generation’s Use of the Keitai

The 1900s may go down as a historic period for Japan. That is to say that the door to networking and information exchange was opened wide – predominantly by young people, specifically high school-age girls who found their ideal weapon in the paging service called the “pocket bell” (pok鬬 to bell). Without even being aware of their influence, using their own “personal information communication device” they “mastered the network” and were communicating with their friends and sharing information. There is significance in the fact that the younger generation was the first to grasp what is now the shape of our current mainstream information environment. Up until this time the “information powerhouses” were such places as the corporate executives and government offices that are mainstays of the society.

There are other elements to the usage of the pager that connect to today. First, it does not give the caller priority. The format of the pager is similar to that of e-mail. Although one may be able to know that the information arrived, unless the receiver goes to get the information communication is not established. The noteworthy point of this format is in the fact that one can designate the callers of choice in advance. Caller identification was possible from the start with the paging service. Here then is where the “changes to the callers first world of the keitai” that was mentioned in the previous section may have originated. There was even a word created called “bell friends” (the custom of listing your pager number in magazines or on bulletins to make friends). The distinctive feature being that it was anonymous. This anonymous culture was picked up by the Internet and the keitai, and where anonymity cannot be preserved it has become a closed network limited to only friends.

Let us look now at the history of this period. During this period is also the time when the younger generation graduated from pagers to the keitai. The paging service (the pocket bell) that began as a business item became a ‘must-have item’ for junior high girls around the time the display units hit the market. In 1991 the number of paging service subscriptions was approximately 7,000,000. And then the PHS (Personal Handyphone Service) service that was born out of the concept to digitize the cordless house telephone, making it possible to use outdoors, followed in its wake.

During the three years around 1994-1996 these three collided. First of all, plans were being made to make the pagers so that they could not only send numbers but also the alphabet, or to make them not only receive but to send as well. In some girl’s schools prohibitions against carrying the po-ké-bells onto campus were passed, showing no end to the onslaught of this trend. On the other hand, the mobile phone industry put in place substantial price cutting plans such as lowered their new enrollment fees (done away with in 1996) and abolishing the security deposit in hopes of rebounding out of their losing battle. Among these, the sell and keep mobile phone system of April 1994, was very effective, partially due to the lower costs of enrollment. Two months after this plan was put in place, in June 1994, the number of enrollments for mobile phones surpassed that of fixed-line phones for the first time in one month at NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation). It looked as though the mobile telephone had commenced its recovery just when the PHS joined the battle. The advanced reviews of the PHS were so good that it cannot be disputed that the mobile phone industry’s wariness of the PHS is what caused the industry to take the above measures in the first place. The PHS began service in October 1994 and within one year had 1 million subscribers. In this heated struggle, the one media that rapidly lost ground was the pager. The younger generation who had been the mainstay for the pagers had switched to PHS. The PHS was called by its nickname “pi-cchi” and instantly spread throughout the younger generation, but predominantly among high school girls. The service area was limited, but the costs were low and the battery life long, resulting in an overwhelming acceptance of the PHS. In short, the younger generation opened the door to information with the pagers and onto the PHS and finally switched to the keitai.

The Keitai and Friendships

Let us think about the friendships that are based on the keitai at this point. For a young person, it seems as though the keitai contacts database with telephone numbers means something other than it did in my generation. When asked how many numbers they may have in their phone, students would say, around a few hundred. That, in itself, is not a surprising number, but of those contacts, for 80 to 90 percent of them the keitai is the sole means of contact known. This just shows what an important role the keitai plays in the younger generation’s friendship relationships, but it also indicates that numbers are casually exchanged, and a large portion of friends are nothing more than that.

This means that the friendship relationship can be drastically changed. In other words, every time you change your brand or model of keitai if you don’t notify others with that information you will lose a large portion of your friendships. In actuality there are some students who have changed their keitai number exactly for this purpose. We can also cut contact with a number of relationships if we do not give notice when we move residences or our job site, but compared with the power of the younger generation’s keitai, the amount of work involved and the resulting effects are considerably low.

A New Form of Place and Discipline

My colleagues, Mizuko Ito, special research assistant, and Daisuke Okabe, special research instructor, are conducting an investigative research of the keitai. Research revolving around the keitai up until now has mostly been conducted through surveys, but they are using a method “a limited group of participants making possible a deeper investigation.” Professors Ito and Okabe are researching how new etiquette, customs and relationships are being born as a consequence of keitai.

The unique feature of this research is the creation of a communication diary that was requested of the participants. While referring to this diary, detailed interviews are conducted. The current group of participants consists of 17 people. The diary records such information as the time, the other party, the place, the media — as to phone or mail, the reasoning behind that choice, the surrounding people and whether any problems were encountered.

They are focusing on the changes in the locationality based on the keitai. The keitai is used in the home, public places, schools and at the workplace. The poor keitai usage etiquette among the younger generation is well known. However, rather than thinking that it is due to their lack of manners, my colleagues are thinking that conflicting intercommunity etiquette rules are colliding and perhaps it is a difference in awareness towards the place that is occurring.

The Keitai and the Family

Along with the spread of the keitai, a change in the position of the house as the hub for communication with the outside world seems to be certain. Just as the cordless phone broke up the hub of communication which was the living area (where the phone was located), the keitai is extinguishing the hub called the house. As a result of losing the house as the hub for communication with the outside world, the voices of those who say that it causes “the breakdown of the family” and the advent of the age of the absent family, but this is seemingly not all true.

There are those families who want to be able to get in contact with their children at all times for emergency purposes and give their children keitais. Then there are those parents that don’t want a change in the structure of the family, or feel they can’t keep up with which friends their children are playing or what they are doing and so they are against giving their children keitais.

Kunihito Amagasa, a graduate student in my research department, is studying the changes in the family unit created by the keitai. The analysis has been that it will probably be broadly split in two. In brief, the families in which the house space, up until now, played a large part in family bonding are now starting to bond outside of the household. As a result, there is a possibility that due to the keitai causing strengthened emotional ties among the family that this will creep into other social relationships and bring about an “age of the family.” This means in comparison with the past where from the time one left the house to the time one returned there was no contact with the family, now the networking with the family is maintained at the workplace or at school and as a result, the family relationship is infiltrating the society. From examples such as these it has been concluded that most likely the “age of the family” and the “age of the absence of the family” are going to move forward in parallel fashion. In any age there are families that have strong family bonds and there are families with weak family relationships, however the keitai will speed up this dichotomy and the strong families will influence even the society around them and the weak families will become weaker. A strong family’s “hub” is the mother. A mother who has mastered the keitai is constantly staying in communication with the family and consolidating information. Although they are not at home, they are connected by the keitai. In these types of families it is common that the mother’s keitai is shared among the family. That is to say, that the mother’s keitai is placed in a designated area and whoever is nearby answers the phone when it rings. Amagasa analyzes this phenomenon as follows: “By allowing something that is originally for one’s own personal use to be shared among all, the mother purposefully weakens her own position. And thereby strategically uses the feelings of trust and oneness that is gained for the bonding of the family system.” You might wonder where the father fits in. But as may be expected, the situation of the father does not change. For the fathers that are at home so little of the time, I would think this is a great opportunity for them to find a position in the strengthened family relationship through the keitai, but apparently no such example was found in Amagasa’s research.

There are many different kinds of families. To elicit a general theory out of a limited study is very difficult and is dangerous as well, but I believe Amagasa’s research captures a valid aspect of the issues at hand.

Born in 1942, Kenji Kohiyama graduated from Japan’s Keio University with an M.S. and Ph.D. in Science and Technology. He then worked for Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), where he researched digital wireless transmission. He also served as an executive director at NTT-AT. Since 1997, he’s been a professor at the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University.