Research on the social impact of mobile telecommunications

Mobile communications is changing our life in ways we haven't foreseen. Just to imagine, that this revolution is still relatively new - we are just sitting at the beginning of the journey and so much more to come!

Now, more and more research seems to come up looking into changes created through these technologies. Back in August, we talked about the fact that Americans are different from the rest of the world when we introduced a study conducted by Intel. The most recent was from Synovate, a market research agency that wrote in one of their studies about the impact of technology on family life.

Now, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) publishes results of a 3 year study that was conducted with the Australian Social Science Academy (ASSA). The objective was to look into the social impact of the mobile phone on the Australian society and examines ways for potential research to go forward (what?? They researched three years to find out areas to look into?? - okay!)

But basically, the project discussion paper groups issues into four thematic sections that can be researched:

- the structure of social groups and the impact of the mobile phone;
- work, home and leisure;
- social innovations in a digital context;
- patterns of use of the mobile phone.

The paper can be found at the link provided after sending an e-mail to someone in charge - we haven't received it yet, so may be there is more to it..