Mimi Ito, cultural anthropologist at Keio SFC and USC, writes about the usage of wireless phones by youth in Japan.

Urban space has become highly personalized, no longer a site of anonymity. Young people are in social contact even when alone, coordinating a meeting with a friend, sharing information about a shopping conquest, a celebrity sighting, a photo of their entre, or just killing time in a texting chat as they ride the train home. Even as the urban environment is being homogenized by the latest franchise influx, mobile phones become devices for customizing and personalizing even the most generic of urban places.

Mobiles and the appropriation of place: Mizuko Ito [vodafone.com]