Urban youth between the ages of 15 and 30 years are the main market for India’s mobile service providers. Youth in India are also the largest consumers of mobile VAS.

Virgin Mobile India has signed a deal with Nimbuzz to provide instant messaging features to their mobile phone customers. Through Vchatter, customers will be able to log on to multiple instant messaging services with a single login.

I came across this article, which says that a mobile game featuring Paris Hilton will soon be available on mobile phones in India via Reliance. The game has been developed by a French company called Gameloft. The article raises an interesting point about the impact of Western icons and values in India. Does the availability of this game suggests that mobile phones are another tool which is exposing young people in India to Western cultural products? Or the fact that buying mobile games is a personal choice for the user therefore, may not necessarily spread western cultural values like the mainstream media?

This article reports that Hindustan Times, a major Indian newspaper is changing it’s look and reporting style to cater to India’s youth population.

Sanjoy Narayan, editor-in-chief, HT, “Relationship and the people’s approach to consumption of news has changed. They get news faster from television, Internet, mobile phones (through SMS alerts), social media networks and newsletters. The reader wakes up in the morning not to know ‘what’ but ‘why’. While we deal with this ‘why’, it has lead to the overall restaging of the product.”

Interesting….is it only HT or other newspapers are taking the similar route???

There is lot of debate happening on my blog post on Motorola advert. So I have decided to now write my answer in a post. The ad in question is for Motoyuva w230 and it shows the father scolding the young boy for creating a mess in the house. The boy puts the earphones and listens to songs on his mobile shutting out his father.

My simple assertion was that the underlying message behind this ad was not culturally appropriate.

One of the recent replies is from Maneet who works in the mobile industry. I am quoting from his response for the full response you should read the comments below my earlier post.

“They chose to catch the youth audience’s attention by telling them that they can shut out the world’s problems around them by listening to music on thier motorola phone. ” “Lets allow Motorola (who has since almost shut shop in India) a bit of creative space to advertise.”

I quite agree with Maneet that we need to allow Motorola some creative space to advertise. I think all I would like to point out is how this ad could have been done differently.

In India, mobile phones are bought by parents, so if it is promoted as a device to alienate parents I am not sure that will work. I think a positioning that shows mobile phones as a device that strengthens bond between parents and growing up adolescents has more chances to succeed in a country like India.

If we take the above ad for example, when the father starts scolding the kid, he should have just let his mobile phone ring with a ringtone of his father’s favorite song. That would have immediately put father’s mood at ease. And father could have been shown asking his son about how to get that ringtone in his mobile phone. The son could have shown him how to do that and while the father enjoys downloading his favorite songs on his mobile phones, the son could have cleaned the house while listening to songs of his liking on his mobile phone. And the tagline could have been - “papa bhi khush, beta bhi khush.”

I am not saying that my idea is better or it would have succeeded, but the point is that why make ads that show mobile phones as making kids irresponsible.

This story in AsiaOne digital reported that social media will play an active role in Indian elections this year. New electronic machines will be used for voting and there is an online voter registration campaign. Facebook, YouTube and blogs all of them will be used for campaigning. Political parties are sending SMS updates to voters.

Of the 700 million voters, 100 million youth between the 18 - 24 years will be first time voters. It would be an interesting election.

D. Shivkumar, VP and MD Nokia India says -

India is Nokia’s no. 2 country.

The current mobile penetration in the Indian market is 30%.

Youth is a very important market segment for cell phone brands.

Research Articles on mobile phones and youth -

1. Mobile Phone usage among college students in America - Aoki & Downes (2003)

2. Cross-cultural comparison of perceptions and uses of mobile telephones among college students - Campbell (2007) (full text)

3. Mobile phone usage and social networks among young Russian adults - Gladarev & Lonkila (2008)

4. Gender differences in social networking through mobile phones among Japanese college students - Igarashi, Takai, & Yaoshida (2005)

5. Comparison of Internet and mobile phone usage among Japanese and Taiwanese youth - Ishii & Wu (2006)

6. Use of mobile phones as fashion items among Japanese and American college students - Katz & Sugiyama (2006)

7. Gratifications sought by college students in Hong Kong from pager use - Leung & Wei (1998)

8. Social meaning behind adoption of mobile phones by teens in Norway - Ling (2007)

9. Mobile phone usage among Norwegian youth - Ling (2007)

10. What is the appropriate age for children and young people to adopt mobile phones - Ling & Helmersen (2000)

11. Mobile phones as an object of fashion and personal display among teens in Norway - Ling (2001)

12. The diffusion of mobile phones among youth in Norway - Ling (2001)

13. The impact of mobile phones on parental and peer relationships of teens in Norway - Ling & Yttri (2003)

14. Mobile Communication culture among Finnish teenagers and its implications for social interaction - Oksman & Turtiainen (2004)

15. Issues concerning new communication technologies and youth - Thurlow & McKay (2003)

16. Youth culture and cell phone branding in China - Wang (2005)

17. Gratifications of cell phone use among college students in Taiwan - Wei & Lo (2006)

18. Use of mobile phones by teens in South Korea  - Yoon (2003)

LG has launched three new multimedia mobile phones for youth in India. The KS360 almost sounds like an iPhone clone with touchscreen display. The features in these new mobile phones such as Yahoo search, NDTV viewer etc. make them sound like a mini-computer plus TV. I think these new phones signal an indication that mobile internet is soon going to be a reality in India and Indian youth are certainly going to lead this revolution. I am looking for any good examples of how this may be actually happening.

Motorola is set to launch new mobile phones with music rich features and wi-fi capability.

Spice Mobile launches S-590, an affordable cell phone with video camera capability, POPAT (talking phone), and other VAS features.

Rich Ling  is a sociologist and researches mobile phone usage among Norwegian youth -

In his paper titled, Children, youth and mobile communication, he writes that on one hand mobile phones allow emancipation of youth from parents and on other, it serves as a portal to peer group.

In this paper, The adoption, use and social consequences of mobile telephony, he writes about the adoption of mobile phones, popularity of SMS, and personalization of mobile phones.

In this paper, Mobile communications vis - a - vis teens emancipation, peer group integration and deviance, he write about how mobile phones are an aspect of teen experience in Norway and they allow emancipation and social integration with peers.

New communication technologies (mobile phones, the internet, third generation applications) are re-defining the way social interaction takes place among the young people. In this post, I review the study published by Virpi Oksman & Jussi Turtiainen from the University of Tampere in Finland.

In this study “Mobile communication as a social stage”, Oksman & Turtiainen (2004) look at the significance of mobile communication in the life of Finnish teenagers from the theoretical standpoint of “symbolic interactionism.”

The ”symbolic interactionism” framework states that, “interactions are symbolic and based on signs and meanings, and social interactions produce shared meanings.” It also presumes that face - to - face interaction is the most fundamental form of social interaction. They write that, according to Goffman’s social stage theory, presentation of self  (an acceptable persone) and a “frame” that defines the signs and forms of interaction are an important aspects of social interaction. Goffman differentiates between “embodied” (when the body is present) and “disembodied” (when the body is distant) information. In the much of the mobile communication, social interaction takes place through disembodied participants. Hence, it can be assumed that mobile communication are re-defining social interaction. Therefore, the main research questions guiding this study is “whether new media technologies (mobile communications) generate new forms of social interaction?”

The data for this study was collected through an ongoing research project at University of Tampere, that focused on communication culture of under-18s in Finland. There were 168 inidividual and group thematic interviews of teenagers conducted between spring 2000 and winter 2002. The duration of the interviews varied from one to three hours. 99 percent of the participants owned a mobile phone and belonged to socioeconomically heterogeneous background. The thematic interviews were conducted in places where young people normally hang out such as cafes and fast food restaurants.

They use the “media ethnographic” approach to understand the mobile communication of young people. According to them, young people’s mobile communication and cultural practices should be understood as connected with their every day life, sociocultural environment and other media use.

In their study, they found that:

1. Mobile phone is an important part of everyday life for Finnish teenagers, used to maintain social networks and form new relationships. It is also used to define their personal space, that is, it enables private communication outside of parental supervision.

2. Mobile communication has changed the relationship between teens and their parents. In general, teens have more freedom to conduct their own affairs.

3. Mobile communication allows teens to maintain their evolving social networks and forge new friendships. It particularly enables romantic relationships through text messaging.

4. Mobile communication has also led to new forms of mediated communication practices such as text messaging, bomb calls.

5. Mobiles are also used by teenagers to pass time by sending text messages and playing games.

6. When compared with other new forms of communication technologies and applications, mobile phones were considered as more necessary aspect of their everyday life and communication.

7. Although there were no differences in the ownership of mobile phones between girls and boys they detected gender differences in their use of  and attitudes towards technology. For example, girls sent longer messages and were more interested in the interactive and aesthetic aspects of technology. Whereas boys sent shorter messages, and were more interested in the developments in new technologies.