Mobile phones and cultures

Yesterday I was talking to a Ghanaian man I met about the cultural mobile phone uses in Ghana. Here is some feed for thought:

'As an anthropologist, Bell tells us that she has a basic belief set, centered on the idea that behavior changes far more slowly than technology does, and much more slowly than technologists hope.This belief is informed by ethnographic research in 15 countries and 300 or more homes, discovering that cultural context matters a great deal more than the power of emerging technology.'

'Cultures can create entirely new uses for mobile phones. In Ghana, where Bell tells us that the local phone networks have been destroyed by copper thieves (...) mobile phones have linked up seven times as many Ghanaians as are linked by land lines (...) Close analysis of their call patterns revealed a new behavior - “flashing” - where callers dial numbers and hang up before calls can be completed. A pattern of flashing can contain a message - one flash might mean “everything is okay” while two might mean “call me”. Ultimately, flashing was a function of tarrif structures - the companies needed to reconsider their tarrifs to get people to actually complete calls.'

Genevieve Bell complicates the mobile phone on Ethan Zuckerman's blog 'My heart's in Accra'