3 :: NEW TECHNOLOGIES,
NEW MOBILITIES
negotiated ways. In order to grasp the sociological complexities of such experience,
we introduce the concept of miniaturized mobilities. We have coined this term to
capture both essential elements of communications ‘on the move’ and specifically
how digital technologies are corporeally interwoven with self in the production of
mobile lives. Miniaturized mobilities, we contend, are fundamental to the current
phase of development of contemporary societies and facilitate an intensification of
‘life on the move’ through advances in new portable software and hardware products.Our understanding of this miniaturization of mobile technologies dates back to 1948,
when Bell Telephone Laboratories held a press conference to announce the invention
of the transistor. The transistor-powered radio represented a major break with
previous ways of regulating power flows in electronics through vacuum tubes, which
were very bulky and immobile. Small and relatively mobile, the first transistors were
roughly the size of a golf ball – though quite expensive to produce. The subsequent
introduction of circuit boards reduced transistors dramatically in size, and today they
are only microns across in integrated circuits. As it happens, scientists predicted in
1961 that no transistor on a chip could ever be produced smaller than 10 millionths
of a metre^5 , whereas today, for example on an Intel Pentium chip, they are 100 times
smaller than that. Moreover, transistors today are not only mobile but mass: it has
been estimated, for example, that there are approximately 60 million transistors for
every person on the planet. Whereas a single transistor used to cost up to fifty
dollars, it is difficult today to even speak of a price for a single transistor, given that
one can buy millions for a dollar.Over the past thirty years or so, miniaturization has progressively increased with the
expansion of new technologies. Developments in microelectronics for the portable
production, consumption and transfer of music, speech and data date from the late
1970s. The Sony Walkman, unveiled to the international press initially in 1979, is
perhaps the most important innovation from this period. Paul du Gay et al. sum up
what is culturally distinctive about the Walkman in their study of this iconic Japanese
product thus:We do various things with the Walkman ... listening while
travelling in a crowded train, on a bus or in an underground
carriage; listening while waiting for something to happen or
someone to turn up; listening while doing something else- going for a walk or jogging.^6
The Walkman occupies an important place in the historical emergence of
miniaturized mobilities because it represents an early instance of ‘technoblending’(^5) See http://www.pbs.org/transistor/
background1/events/transfuture.html.
Our thanks to Dan Mendelson for pointing
out these developments and the research
on them.
(^6) Paul du Gay, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes,
Hugh Mackay and Keith Negus, Doing
cultural studies: the story of the Sony
Walkman (London: Sage, 1997), p. 17.
The reference in the following paragraph
is also to p. 17.