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Keitai
From Virtual Japan
Keitai (Not to be confused with Emperor Keitai) is the abbreviated term for “mobile phone” in Japan. The full name is “Keitai Denwa” which translates directly to “Portable Telephone.”
Keitai is also considered a form of culture. Keitai culture is the associated pairing of both the Japanese and Cell phones, which are used by almost the entire population of Japan including over 30% of elementary schoolers.
Keitai Culture
Most of the technological advances in cell phones originated in Japan, and young Japanese men and women have long had the most technologically advanced cell phones available in the world. Complete with email, Internet access, GPS, digital cameras and a variety of other features, Keitai have become a significant part of daily life for Japanese men and women of all ages.
There are a lot of areas in Japan where loud public speaking is considered taboo. Thus text messaging is one of the most common cell phone behaviors, with low message prices and thousands of characters available per message on some of the newer mobile phone models. This leads people to be staring at their phone for long periods of time as they use it for communication in public areas.
The Japanese have also created a number of shortened ways of saying the same thoughts. This abbreviated speech is designed to save them time, but critics say it butchers the language and causes linguistic laziness.
A survey was released by Eye-Ai magazine in April of 2002. The survey asked high school students how many of them had mobile phones and, if they had a mobile phone, how many friends they could name that were without them. Of all the student surveyed, all of them had a cell phone and only one could name a single person they knew that did not have one, and that individual was claimed to be “anti social.”
Criticism
Cell phones have been linked to cancer due to their emitting radiation. They have also been thought to cause problems with radio waves when used with such frequency. In addition, there is a stigma associated with not having a cell phone that results in the individual getting labeled as an outsider.
Also, when an individual is on their cell phone they are often oblivious to the outside world. This makes them more susceptible to theft and to walking into objects.