Mobile Distraught

Reading through a few people’s blogs, I found the recurring theme of mobility and its relation to cell phones. Two in particular, Danielle and Peter’s post which talked about two very important points about mobility, our reliance and usage of it. The breaking down of technological mobility in Danielle’s post proves an interesting point. From the moment she realized that her phone was not going to come back from the dead she sought out an alternate source of communication, relying on the internet as a second resort. But what would she have gone to next, if hypothetically, her internet were down? And what if she weren’t in a situation that she could go to a personal computer? This exemplifies the constant importance that mobility has become in our contemporary lives. And as Danielle pointed out that the transfer of email is not instant, unless by some miraculous coincidence the receiving end happens to be there at that moment. And because of the fact that mobile technology has become an almost necessary part of everyone’s lives, communication between two people through cell phones is instant at almost any moment. Even at 3 A.M. something so important may come up that someone feels the need to contact someone immediately. At the moment and location of each person on both ends of this call, mobility plays a major role. And the feeling of not receiving that call can drastically affect someone’s life. Personally, whenever I get a call from my family it’s usually important. And it’s because of this importance that psychologically we are affected and ‘stressed’ when something like this happens. So this brings up the final question of whether this mobility in technology has actually done us more harm than good or vice versa. From here we can only expect advances and maybe soon we’ll be blobs just like the “humans” in Wall-E. For the time being we may be mobilized, but when it fails or goes too far we are left immobilized.

Now going in a slightly different direction, how is mobility exploited in advertising? It was funny that in Peter's post people from outside of this class read his post and were somewhat insulted by his interpretation. The way in which Peter carried out his analysis of the foreign cell phone ad offended people who saw it in a different light and who maybe knew a bit more background information. So we see how there is most definitely two sides to a post subject. But we only see one whenever we read someone’s blog. This brings up the saying “lost in translation”. But isn’t that what an ad is supposed to be? An individual interpretation left up to the reader to determine whether it appeals to them or not? And mobility is not a term to be taken only in one way, there can be variations depending on age, race, culture, and everything else that differentiates us from everyone else. There are lifestyles that demand the need for such an advanced phone. For example the “pop” star in this ad probably needs to keep constant contact with all his managers, producers, promoters, etc. And as Merry commented, the ad could also be just an ad for Leehom’s new album and more than for just the phone itself. And it would seem as if they didn’t just arbitrarily choose a Chinese pop star to showcase the ad. Because as it was also said, Leehom’s album promoted environmental awareness as does the phone by being able to use one’s own energy instead of electricity to change songs on the music player. And there can also be the subliminal message of changing one’s life through getting this phone as Peter pointed out. Again, it is left to the reader and their circumstance to distinguish whether they need the features of this phone or not, and if it may or may not change them. And I’m sure this phone, or any phone for that matter, would improve one’s mobility. But besides mobility would it improve your quality of life? These days the majority of people are looking for convenience in everything (ex. peanut butter and jelly in the same jar), but is this just an excuse for being lazy? Mobility is described in New Keywords as being “an attribute to life…” (pg. 217), but in modern reality it has become a part of life itself.