[ALBSA-Info] Cell phones in Japan. - A LIFESTYLE SHIFT (fwd)

[eriola]

A LIFESTYLE SHIFT

One afternoon in a department store in Tokyo, Akiko was panic-stricken.
She had left her cellular phone at home.

The 21-year-old student Akiko, didn't notice she had forgotten her
phone--which doubles as her watch--until, she wondered what time it was
and searched her bag for the gadget.

She looked for a public phone to call her mother. When she finally found
one, she couldn't remember her home number.

"For a moment I was horrified," she recalled later. "I didn't need to
memorize my home number because I had entered it into my phone, along
with
more than 50 other important phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I got
really scared at the thought of losing my cell phone."

Cell phones have changed the life style of people in Japan. All modes of
information and communication  --  from directories and games to
Internet
connections fast enough to download audio and video files, to snap and
send photos and to hold teleconferences--all can be concentrated into a
tiny piece of hardware, a cell phone.

More and more people are becoming like Akiko! They neither wear a watch
nor carry any type of reminders or  note books - just their cell phone.

A survey of 5,000 men and women revealed that about half of them said
they
no longer decided beforehand on meeting times or places because they had
cell phones. Even when they run late for appointments, they feel they
are
still in control of the situation by phoning ahead.
Source  --  Yomiuri Newspaper 2001/07/21
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