Pappa? Varför håller du telefonen mot huvudet?
(Dad? How come you hold your phone to your head?)
In his article, Anders Mildner offers lots of examples of how children take on new touch screen based communication technology – such as smart-phones and tablets/pads. Very young children learn how to swipe and try to practise their skills on all sorts of screens, e.g. TV:s. The take digital interactivity for granted and expect to find it in any object.* Older kids treat mobiles primarily as the small computers they really are – thus the question above. And they tend to interpret earlier technologies in terms of the ones they are used to. A father tries to explain to his son that he has burnt a CD that now contains a number of tunes. The son:
Cool! A Spotify list that you can bring along!
The examples Mildner brings up call for an in-depth discussion on the materiality of artefacts in relation to socialization and social interaction, a discussion that will have to wait until later. They also work as illustrations to the discussion in Ubicomp and social media (2 parts). Those of you who are comfortable with Swedish are recommended to read Mildners article! You can also read Ubicomp and social media (part 1).
* Those little kids would be pleased with the lamp I saw in a designer’s shop the other day: By swiping its surface one could not only turn it on and off but also control the intensity of light!
Places, phones and mobilities 