In continuing to think about Japanese mobility, and sparked by a weekend article in the FT about mobility (available here for free), I return to the term: Tele-cocooning. Ichiyo Habuchi coined this term and it is defined as:

the production of social identities in small, insular social groups through mobile communications (source)

I think this is the constant that links the culturally different markets of the world, and it is tied to the young. Within the context of each local market, with differing carriers, business models and technology, it is the universal social movement — coming of age — that is pushing the mobile phone use in the young. Mobile phones add another communication tool to the socializing masses trying to form identities. So technology comes in to play in defining the boundaries (and richness?) of what can be expressed (SMS in a global constant, video is not yet). Business models guide our choices on how frequently we can share/connect and for how long. Cultural differences are expressed in the ways that young people go about exploring their relationships and forming their identities.

So when we ask a teenager a particular question about Presence (the yet elusive IMPS concept): Assuming control (you can hide and have privacy if you want), do you want your friends to be able to know where you are without asking you? The answer will often be: no. Why? The infinite gradients of who’s in and who’s out of a teenager’s social circle will be so complex and fine-tuned that can a buddy list really capture it? The friends who need to know where I am will know already via a quick SMS. It’s as much about connecting as it is about not connecting to certain people — and that will change a lot.

So yeah, there is a bright future in mobile services in most of the world — that truth rides on the universality of human socialization — but the apps that cross all the gaps have to take into account culture. Data usage specifically will be a function of a culture — will a video chat be universally accepted? SMS is such a great example of an international success because it leaves the content to the user, and we all know that language is the baseline for capturing all the subtleties of our cultures.