Gauravonomics Blog

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Even as I’m painfully aware of the myth of leapfrogging, I’m endlessly fascinated by how young people in urban India have embraced mobile phones.

I have been able to persuade new friend Priyanka Matanhelia to blog about the findings of her doctoral research on mobile phone usage amongst Indian youth and she is off to a quick start.

Consider her post on SMS romance in India where she references some interesting sources like the 2002 Asia Times story titled “India’s Love Affair with Hi-Tech Flirting” and the 2002 India Today story titled “Love, Sex and SMS” —

In most cases, hi-tech flirting - often punctuated with smileys and winking ‘emoticons’ - is a private display of affection. You can hear them in pubs, meetings, seminars, fashion shows, sit-down dinners, drawing rooms, even in bedrooms. The buzz of the SMS has become an omnipresent, everyday rhythm, sometimes the secretive smiles giving away the frenzied exchanges between couples even as they sit in the same room watching a fashion show or attending a corporate conference. Some users confess that they spend a good part of the night making SMS love. It is indicative of a paradigm shift in personal communication among Indians, for many of whom explicit talk about love and sex is restrained by conscious cultural reminders, but continues to simmer inside.

It really is a woman’s medium. SMS has empowered a lot of women to be original when sending text about love and romance, something about which they would otherwise be shy. (Journalist Vir Shanghvi)

The ultimate four-letter word is ‘talk’. Talk is a potent foreplay and unfortunately it doesn’t happen much in Indian bedrooms. There is no doubt that if a man and woman exchange 50 SMS messages in an hour’s time, it has more to do with sexual intent than just flirtation. (Sexologist Dr Prakash Kothari)

SMS is like Viagra with buttons and a ring tone. I believe it is a very ‘powerfully silent’ communication tool, very personalized and almost akin to human touch. I use it for three things primarily: work, play and foreplay. On the foreplay front, it is great for mind games. (Advertising guru Suhel Seth)

It’s amazing that these stories were written in 2002, the year I used a mobile phone for the first time in a small town called Mithapur in Gujarat (there go my claims of being an early adopter!). It’s equally amazing that a lot of people in India were sending as many as hundred text messages every day even in 2002, and less than half of mobile phone users in India use text messaging in 2008. India is indeed a country of strange contrasts.

In a follow up post, Priyanka references research conducted by University of Washington doctoral student (and Microsoft Research intern) Carolyn Wei on how youngsters in Bangalore use mobile phones to maintain personal relationships –

Mobile phones have become an integral part of the romantic process for urban middle-class people. The participants in this study used mobile phones to coordinate meetings or to have deeper conversations that fill in the gap of physical absence. Given their packed schedules and the physical separation inherent to many of their relationships, participants rely on the mobile phone for their courtship. Lengthy and regular phone conversations seem to be a central part of the courtship story for these participants.

As the courtship stabilizes into a long-term relationship or marriage, participants continue to use the mobile phone with their partner. The phone is used by co-located husbands and wives to touch base and coordinate activities. Mobile phones are used by physically separated partners to keep each other up-to-date on their news and plans, in a sense to keep the relationship living and growing.

Mobiles are a stage for emotional expression and nonverbal communication such as switching off the phone to express anger or saving text messages for sentimental reasons. The nonverbal elements of the mobile can also serve to create expectations for the owner through the obligations of perpetual contact. Users want to keep their mobile phones on to provide a living link to their friends and family. But they also want occasional peace from the phone, at least to sleep. It is not possible to turn off the phone without missing a call, and not answering the phone may create the social impression that the owner is avoiding a call. A mobile phone is like a “living companion” that carries its own emotions and meaning, demands constant attention, and cannot be turned off.

Clearly, SMS romance is not unique to India. Recently, Clive Thompson reported in New York Times that the Japanese sociologist Mizuko Ito had noticed something similar –

lovers who were working in different cities would send text messages back and forth all night — tiny updates like “enjoying a glass of wine now” or “watching TV while lying on the couch.” They were doing it partly because talking for hours on mobile phones isn’t very comfortable (or affordable). But they also discovered that the little Ping-Ponging messages felt even more intimate than a phone call.

I find it interesting that from the bottom of the pyramid villager, to the upwardly mobile youngster in hi-tech Bangalore and Tokyo, the core motivations for using a mobile phone are the same: staying in touch with loved ones.

Also see Priyanka’s posts on how young people view their relationship with their mobile phones and how socio-cultural practices lead to technical innovations in mobile phones and subscribe to her blog.