The Cell Phone, Constant Connection and Time Scarcity in Australia

There can be little doubt that the cell phone is one of the most rapidly diffused devices in the history of technological innovation. Worldwide there are now over 1.7 billion cell phone accounts, 600 million more cell phones services than fixed lines (Castells et al. 2007). Many contemporary social scientists have seen the social effects of diffusion of portable information and communication technologies (ICTs) as signaling a historical watershed. For example, Virilio (2000) has asserted that ICTs, including the cell phone have transformed proximity, so that it is now based on time rather than place. The capacity of cell phones to operate regardless of location gives rise to new patterns of continuous mediated interactions (Agar 2003; Katz and Aakhus 2002; Licoppe and Smoreda 2006). While Nicola Green (2002) argues that mobile technologies afford novel opportunities for intensifying strong ties, others presume these technologies encourage work problems to * spillover' and colonize the social spaces and times once reserved for family life (Fligstein and Sharone 2002; Chesley 2005; Duxbury et al. 2006). Many writers have linked the 'always on' character of mobile technology with an increase in the pace of daily life (Wajcman 2008). The accelerated change popularly ascribed to ICTs is neatly captured in the title of journalist and science writer James Gleick's (1999) book, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. Cell phones are said to eliminate 'down time', presumably increasing the sensation that there is never a moment to spare. Although they do not connect their observations to the use of ICTs, Robinson and Godbey (1997) have suggested that the fragmentation of leisure explains the rising proportion of Americans who felt increasingly 'rushed or pressed for time' between 1965 and 1995 (even though the average leisure time of Americans had increased over this period).