New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion

by Richard Ling

Overview

How cell phones and mobile communication may in many cases strengthen social cohesion.

The message of this book is simple: the mobile phone strengthens social bonds among family and friends. With a traditional land-line telephone, we place calls to a location and ask hopefully if someone is “there”; with a mobile phone, we have instant and perpetual access to friends and family regardless of where they are. But when we are engaged in these intimate conversations with absent friends, what happens to our relationship with the people who are actually in the same room with us? In New Tech, New Ties, Rich Ling examines how the mobile telephone affects both kinds of interactions—those mediated by mobile communication and those that are face to face. Ling finds that through the use of various social rituals the mobile telephone strengthens social ties within the circle of friends and family—sometimes at the expense of interaction with those who are physically present—and creates what he calls “bounded solidarity.” Ling argues that mobile communication helps to engender and develop social cohesion within the family and the peer group. Drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim, Erving Goffman, and Randall Collins, Ling shows that ritual interaction is a catalyst for the development of social bonding. From this perspective, he examines how mobile communication affects face-to-face ritual situations and how ritual is used in interaction mediated by mobile communication. He looks at the evidence, including interviews and observations from around the world, that documents the effect of mobile communication on social bonding and also examines some of the other possibly problematic issues raised by tighter social cohesion in small groups.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262515047
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	09/24/2010
Series:	The MIT Press
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rich Ling is Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Senior Research Scientist at the Telenor Research Institute near Oslo, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan. He is the author of New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion (MIT Press, 2008).

What People are Saying About This

Howard Rheingold

I turn to Rich Ling first when I want to get beyond hype and conjecture regarding the social uses and impacts of mobile media. His new book is a milestone. Anyone who wants to know how our use of mobile phones is changing our social lives should read this book.

Endorsement

I turn to Rich Ling first when I want to get beyond hype and conjecture regarding the social uses and impacts of mobile media. His new book is a milestone. Anyone who wants to know how our use of mobile phones is changing our social lives should read this book.

—Howard Rheingold, author of Tools for Thought, The Virtual Community, and Smart Mobs

From the Publisher

"I turn to Rich Ling first when I want to get beyond hype and conjecture regarding the social uses and impacts of mobile media. His new book is a milestone.

Anyone who wants to know how our use of mobile phones is changing our social lives should read this book." — Howard Rheingold, author of Tools for Thought, The Virtual Community, and Smart Mobs

Editorial Reviews

I recommend this book to practitioners in the field of mobile communications.—Eric W. Yocam, Computing Reviews—

From the Publisher

I recommend this book to practitioners in the field of mobile communications.

—Eric W. Yocam, Computing Reviews

Reviews

I recommend this book to practitioners in the field of mobile communications.

Computing Reviews - Eric W. Yocam