The Meaning of Keitai

Kenji Kohiyama, Professor at the Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

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.

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