Responsible: Dr. Leslie Haddon, LSE, UK
Participants: Chantal de Gournay (France Telecom R&D), Maria Lohan, (Trinity College, Dublin), Britt Östlund (Vinnova, Stockholm), Isabella Palombini (Fondazione Ugo Bordoni), Bartolomeo Sapio (Fondazione Ugo Bordoni), Maud Kilegran (ICT User Research HB)

This workgroup was formed during the workshop on ‘Mobility’ held in Malaga in connection with the 2nd MC meeting (Nov. 1999). It aimed to follow up a theme identified as important in previous COST248 work on mobile phones, but consider more broadly all portable ICTs. At the time, some researchers had started to note that issues around mobility merited more study as the area had been little researched outside of transport studies.

The goal of the group was to chart the research in this field and identify both what was known and gaps in our knowledge, implying areas for further research. This was an initiative particular suitable since the members were aware of research both in the public domain in that conducted by telecoms operators — and they could pool experience from different countries.


Results

The first output of the workgroup was the paper that set out the reasons for studying mobility and proposed a division between a) looking at ICTs and travel behaviour and b) looking at ICT use and behaviour in public spaces. (Haddon, L., 2000. An Agenda for ‘Mobility in Everyday Life’ for ICT Researchers)

The main report from the workgroup (Haddon et al, 2001. From Mobile to Mobility: The Consumption of ICTs and Mobility in Everyday Life):

• provided an introduction to the field with a bibliography, defined its boundaries and set an agenda for research.
• charted the landscape, noting what has received more and less attention and what research could count as being relevant for this area.
• constructed the sub-themes in the field around which research can be clustered and further developed.
• indicated the distinctions that need to be made within mobility, why some are strategic for research (e.g. commuting, time spent abroad), and what elements needed to be taken into account.
• identified what types of questions could be more or less easily addressed
• proposed further research areas and lines of questioning.
• mapped some main issues raised by mobility and ICT
  

As one can appreciate, there are many individual points in such a review, rather than a single set of conclusions — just as a textbook for students would be organised, although in the mobility case this is an agenda defining text for the research community. That said, it is possible to make some general statements as conclusions.

Mobility in everyday life is a neglected area because ICT researchers usually focus on the home and other fixed locations. It is only now starting to receive some attention. The area should include both mobility in the sense of travel behaviour and behaviours in public spaces (when being mobile).
It is far more difficult to pose questions about how overall changes in our mobility affect our experience of ICTs than vice versa. This is because of the different rates of change in the field of technology compared to changing everyday practices. However, it is possible to consider the shorter term changing mobility of certain groups such as children and women.

If we are fully to understand people’s experience of ICTs when mobile and take this into account in design, we have to look beyond immediate ‘use’ to consider what people are more generally doing when using technologies and the problems they face. For example, this is well illustrated in a growing range of research detailing how people try to control and manage their communications and their relationships with others around them when they are communicating.

The technological promise of portable technologies such as the mobile phone has partly, but only partly, been fulfilled and when fulfilled there can also be negative side effects. For example, the research shows various ways that mobiles do allow more flexibility (e.g. to not be tied to the home or work base, to more spontaneously arrange meetings, etc). But social constraints mean that not everyone leads lifestyles where they can enjoy that flexibility (e.g. social commitments means they have to book time well in advance), that flexibility itself can lead to a decline in the perceived value of punctuality and being reachable anytime anywhere can itself be a pressure.

Standing back from individual themes, some key areas where mobility and ICTs raises issues are the implications they have for the relationship between public and private space, questions of surveillance and threats to privacy, questions of sustainable mobility and the relationship between mobility and people’s sense of modernity.

The mobility report led to some Norwegian research on the topic, a subsequent conference paper based on that research, which is now a book chapter (Ling and Haddon, 2003). The report as a whole became one of the chapters in a book (Haddon, 2004). Further Norwegian research on the topic is now being conducted and some of the themes discussed are currently being proposed for funding in the UK. When the workgroup started, there was very little sociological study of mobility — now there are several European groups and informal networks devoted to the topic. Some of those participating have noted that this COST269 report was one of the earliest works in this field and hence they found it very useful.