tous and yet discreet reachabili-ty—this technology has become a tool of the intimate sphere [ 4]. Research indicates that we are mostly using the mobile phone to talk to our closest family and friends.

One of the main effects of the mobile phone is that it changes the way that we micro-coordinate our everyday affairs [ 5]. Previous to the rise of the mobile phone, we most often coordinated activities by agreeing to a time and a place where we would meet. In this regime, there was—and indeed often still is—the assumption that all participants have access to a correctly synchronized timekeeping device. Thus, we coordi-

nated our meetings by referring to our watch and assumed that the other meeting partners also did the same, with a device that was in good working order. If they had forgotten to wind their watch, if it was running fast or slow or, in more contemporary times, the battery of their watch was dead, the efforts at coordination were frustrated.

The mobile phone changes this process. We can negotiate both the time and the place via the mobile phone in real time [ 6]. If one partner is a bit late because of traffic, for example, he or she can simply call or text to the others in order to rearrange the meeting. If the cafe where we were to meet our

friend is too full, we can suggest an alternative. If we do not remember if our spouse wanted cheese or milk from the store, a quick call will clear up the issue. The ability to micro-coordinate may indeed be the most profound social consequence of the mobile phone. It provides us with a simple way to keep in touch with one another and to make, and re-make, arrangements.

It is wrong, however, to think that the mobile phone is used only for instrumental interaction. It is also a channel through which we express our emotions (“I love you so much John, but I still need to divorce Harry”), we experience power relations

[ 4] Ling, R. Ne w Tech,
New Ties: How Mobile
Communication Is
Reshaping Social
Cohesion. Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2008.
[ 5] Ling, R., and B. Yttri.
“Hyper-coordination
Via Mobile Phones in
Norway.” In Perpetual
Contact: Mobile com-
munication, private talk,
public performance,
edited by J. E. Katz and
M. Aakhus, 139-169.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
[ 6] See A. M. Townsend,
“Life in the Real Time
City - mobile telephones
and urban metabo-
lism,” Journal of Urban
Technology 7 (2000):
85-104; and R. Ling, The
Mobile Connection: The
cell phone’s impact on
society. San Francisco:
Morgan Kaufmann,
2004.