“Mobile” Phones: The Time/Space and Society/Individual in the Liquid Modernity

Abstract

This paper attempts to understand the impact of mobile phones by taking note of both the technological characteristics of mobile phones and the culture of the liquid modernity. Our contention is that the quality of “instant connectivity” of mobile phones and the “ambivalence” between individual and society beneath the liquid modernity jointly bring about the phenomena which cannot be explicated by “perpetual contact”. These phenomena we attempt to investigate include the softening of time/space frameworks, the blurring of the demarcation between public and private spheres, and the fluidity of the relations between individual and society.