Tele-Cocooning

‘Tele-Cocoons’ is a term developed by Ichiyo Habuchi to describe intimate HCI. My own term for this is the 'technosocial womb' - where everything is the same distance away. The similarity in terms, as well as the

..."the sharing of photos is tied to a sense of “distributed co-presence” that we have found people constructing through the exchange of texts messaging (ito and Okabe 2005). In the case of text messaging, people will often email intimates with information about their current status, such as “I’m walking up the hill now,” or “just watched a great TV show.” The visual information shared between intimates also represents a similar social practice, of sharing ambient awareness with close friends, family and loved ones who are not physically co-present. As in the case of the prior mediums of text and voice, these communications are part of the construction of “full-time intimate communities” (Nakajima, Himeno, and Yoshii, 1999; Matsuda 2005), or what Ichiyo Habuchi has called a “tele- cocoon.” These perspectives are based on a growing body of work on mobile phone use in Japan is showing that people generally exchange the bulk of their mobile communication with a relatively small and intimate social group of 2-5 others. The exchange of communication with this group, in turn, becomes a relexive process of self-authoring and viewpoint construction.

References

• Grinter, R. E., & Eldridge, M. A. (2001). y do tngrs luv 2 txt msg? Paper presented at the Seventh European Conference on Computer- Supported Cooperative Work, Bonn, Germany.
• Habuchi, Ichiyo. 2005. “Accelerating Reflexivity.” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Ito, Mizuko and Daisuke Okabe. 2003. “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Re-placement of Social Contact.” Front stage-Back-stage, the fourth Conference of the social consequences of mobile telephony.
• Ito, Mizuko and Daisuke Okabe. 2005. “Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structurings of Mobile Email Use.” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Ito, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe, and, Misa Matsuda. 2005. "Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life." Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Japan.internet.com http://japan.internet.com/. Kato, F., D. Okabe, M. Ito, and R. Uemoto. 2005. “Uses and Possibilities of the Keitai Camera” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Matsuda, Misa. 2005a. “Introduction: Discourse of Keitai in Japan” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Matsuda, Misa. 2005b. “Mobile Communications and Selective Sociality” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Nakajima, I., K. Himeno. and H. Yoshii. 1999. "Ido-denwa Riyou no Fukyuu to sono Shakaiteki Imi (Diffusion of Cellular Phones and PHS and their Social Meaning)." Tsuushin Gakkai-shi (Journal of Information and Communication Research), 16(3).
• Okabe, Daisuke and Mizuko Ito. 2003. “Camera phones changing the definition of picture-worthy. Japan Media Review. http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1062208524.php.
• Okabe, Daisuke and Mizuko Ito. 2005. “Keitai and Public Transportation.” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• TCA (Telecommunication Carriers Association), http://www.tca.or.jp/index- e.html.
• Tomoyuki, Okada. 2005. “The Social Reception and Construction of Mobile Media in Japan.” in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life. edited by M. Ito, D, Okabe, and Matsuda, M. Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press.