[These reviews have all been written by Frances Forde Plude. They appeared in the journal Communication Research Trends. Issues can be retrieved at cscc.scu.edu/trends.]
24/7: How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play. Jarice Hanson, Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007.
Many scholars and practitioners have favorite classics shedding light on their communication studies: Empire and communication by Harold Innis; History of Broadcasting by Erik Barnouw; the work of Walter Ong, Jesús Martín-Barbero, Anthony Giddens, and others. In studying this book I was reminded of two of my own favorites by Ithiel de Sola Pool: Social Uses of the Telephone and Technologies of Freedom.
To be honest 24/7 cannot be considered a classic. To be fair, however, in tracing the cultural impact of the cell phone and the Internet, it’s almost impossible to be both profound and current. Technology is moving so quickly one must rush to keep up. (This may explain a number of unwieldy sentences and typographical errors in the book that impede understanding and clarity and should have been caught by an editor).
Jarice Hanson holds the Verizon Chair in Telecommunications at Temple University and is a Communication Professor at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She wants us to “think about activities in which we engage daily, but seldom really consider…” She notes: “If there is one uniting theme in most popular and academic literature, it is that if we can understand the potential of technology to change the way we work, live, or play, we can control the impact of these technologies in our lives.”
The book’s early chapters examine how US culture is moving from mass society to niche audiences and how these earlier technologies have led us to certain expectations about the new tools. She later examines the time and space characteristics of these new technologies and how their social uses can lead to changing attitudes and behaviors. Finally, the author reflects upon how our attitudes and behaviors are already changing.
This volume refers to various research studies, but the author does not cite any specific research of her own. So we have an overview of a field in flux rather than any original data to demonstrate or explain the dynamics. This will be useful, however – as an overview or introduction – for communication teachers and professionals, as well as students. It is a summary of popular writings in the field with limited reference to academic studies.
One very helpful source of data cited is the Pew Internet and American Life Project Survey on generational differences in online activities. On p. 43 of this volume the Pew results are summarized graphically showing how different online activities vary by demographic groups – from teens, Generations Y and X, Boomers (both “Trailing” and “Leading”) and those 60-69 (here called “Matures”).
Many other helpful topics are covered (sometimes too briefly):
how digital time means we think in fragments instead of focusing on the process;
how we are substituting reaction for more substantive, thoughtful communication;
that digital democracy creates a major effect on news and on our election process;
that control over our time and the use of technology are often illusory
Some rather important topics are absent or not explored very thoroughly:
the extent of Cyber-bullying among young people;
the open-source work of scholars like Lawrence Lessig;
the troublesome issue of identity theft; and
the potential for collaboration in idea-sharing way beyond Wikipedia
This latter topic, for example, is the subject of the interesting book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams.
It is clear that new behaviors are being tested and negotiated as cell phones and Internet use expand globally. According to the UN, 77% of the world’s population lives within range of a wireless network, so our author reviews the global variations in cell phone usage. Interestingly many other nations are way ahead of the US in this use and in the level of technology used.
The major problem is that there are – to date – limited studies that can document behavioral changes, or, more precisely, can prove causal relationships between new cultural behaviors and specific technology tools. Some interesting academic studies are overlooked in the Hanson volume; some selectivity is necessary, probably, when covering such a complex topic.
Ithiel de Sola Pool early noted the “space-adjusting” reality of telephone usage and the fact that using the telephone becomes habitual rather than conscious. In his Technologies of Freedom Pool explored, in a very substantive way, the potential for change (at a deep level) as technologies develop. Many of Pool’s challenging reflections remain unexplored today. Perhaps our communication scholars are too busy with their cell phones and Internet usage.