My Literature Review

I have decided to do my literature review on the Impact of Mobile phones on society and from that I have chosen my title to be: Mobile Phones: The demise of Communities. Basically, when researching, I broke the subject up into several categories mainly to help me start thinking about the structure of my report and where I want to go with it.
• Definition of “community”
• How mobile phones are eroding the concept of a community
• Social Networking/mobile phones are replacing a physical community with a virtual one
• How young people are re-shaping our preconception of a community
• How readily available mobile phones/mobile internet are to us

I used for my research a book, several websites, a newspaper, Dictionary, Catalogue and Keynotes Market Report.

The only think that worries me about this (at the moment anyway) is that I go off on a tangent and get carried away with talking about social networks or something, so I am going to keep an eye out for that!! So anyway, here goes.....



“community is nowadays another name for paradise lost—but one to which we dearly hope to return...” - Bauman 2001. Arguably the growing rate at which we all use mobile phones has reshaped our conception of communication. With the introduction of mobile telecommunication, we have been introduced to many new methods of interacting with others. Quigly 2004 states that “Young people are utilising mobile phone technology to establish and maintain peer-based social networks at a time when theorists are debating technology’s role in the apparent loss of community.” Renowned psychologist Zygmunt believes that the community revolves around a physical place. As enforced by Quigly 2004 “Bauman claims that it is due to the absence of such experience that commentators today often report the “demise” of the community” However in our modern day society, our lives become increasingly fragmented. Individuals no longer stay in one place and are required to socialise with people who don’t have the common interest of location but rather hobbies, interests and work. With mobile phone technology becoming ever more advanced, we have recently seen the wide availability of mobile internet, camera phones and GPRS navigation systems. Facebook 2009 (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#/about.php) statistics state that there are over 65 million active users accessing the social networking site via a mobile phone. In addition to this statistic, these 65 million individuals are 50 per cent more active on Facebook that non-mobile users. With society developing a gradually dependencey on mobile phones it is inevitable that our preconception of a community will be forced to change. A recent survey taken in 2009 found that(http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article5920.asp)dound “Almost a third of respondents (31 per cent) confirmed they would feel ‘completely lost’ and ‘isolated’ if they mislaid their mobile phone,”. Taking this into consideration, the demise of the society may well be better phrased as the changing of society.

I hope this is how a literature review is meant to be done :s