Mobile phone usage in Chinese society

Technological innovation has brought human society into a new era - the age of information. It is an age in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) have gradually become indispensable to modern life, and the adoption of them has initiated dramatic social change. As a result, more and more scholastic attention has been paid to the social changes that emerge from the use of ICTs. Sociological and communicational discussions concentrate mainly on the study of mobile phones and research surrounding the effects associated with the use of the Internet. In mobile phone studies, researchers (Kopomaa 2000; Fortunati 2002; Katz and Aakhus 2002; Puro 2002; Ling 2004; Katz 2008) believe that the use of the mobile phone has fundamentally changed the way people communicate with each other, and the way in which they organize their social lives. The concepts of time and space have also changed since mobile phones have penetrated into people’s lives. Conceptions about the division of the public/private sphere have been blurred. Therefore, the use of the mobile phone has not only dramatically changed ‘how people live their lives’, but also ‘how they see their world’ (Katz and Aakhus 2002: 1).