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    Smartphone Is Now The Place Where We Live', Anthropologists Say

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    Елена Сидлаковская
    1) A study by anthropologists at UCL found that people around the world feel the same attachment to their smartphones as they do to their homes. 2) The researchers observed that smartphone users have become "human snails carrying our homes in our pockets", often ignoring friends and family in favor of using their devices. 3) Chat apps like WhatsApp have become central to people's smartphone use in many countries, serving as platforms for keeping in touch with family and communities.

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    Smartphone Is Now The Place Where We Live', Anthropologists Say

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    Елена Сидлаковская
    37 views1 page
    1) A study by anthropologists at UCL found that people around the world feel the same attachment to their smartphones as they do to their homes. 2) The researchers observed that smartphone users have become "human snails carrying our homes in our pockets", often ignoring friends and family in favor of using their devices. 3) Chat apps like WhatsApp have become central to people's smartphone use in many countries, serving as platforms for keeping in touch with family and communities.

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    Статья_Социология (1)

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    1) A study by anthropologists at UCL found that people around the world feel the same attachment to their smartphones as they do to their homes. 2) The researchers observed that smartphone users have become "human snails carrying our homes in our pockets", often ignoring friends and family in favor of using their devices. 3) Chat apps like WhatsApp have become central to people's smartphone use in many countries, serving as platforms for keeping in touch with family and communities.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    37 views1 page

    Smartphone Is Now The Place Where We Live', Anthropologists Say

    Uploaded by

    Елена Сидлаковская
    1) A study by anthropologists at UCL found that people around the world feel the same attachment to their smartphones as they do to their homes. 2) The researchers observed that smartphone users have become "human snails carrying our homes in our pockets", often ignoring friends and family in favor of using their devices. 3) Chat apps like WhatsApp have become central to people's smartphone use in many countries, serving as platforms for keeping in touch with family and communities.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    Статья из периодического издания

    39.06.01 «Социологические науки»


    Smartphone is now ‘the place where we live’, anthropologists say
    A UCL study has found people around the world feel the same about their devices as they do about their
    homes
    Smartphone users have become “human snails carrying our homes in our pockets”, with a
    tendency to ignore friends and family in favour of their device, according to a landmark
    study.
    A team of anthropologists from UCL (University College London) spent more than a year
    documenting smartphone use in nine countries around the world, from Ireland to
    Cameroon, and found that far from being trivial toys, people felt the same way about their
    devices as they did about their homes.
    “The smartphone is no longer just a device that we use, it’s become the place where we
    live,” said Prof Daniel Miller, who led the study. “The flip side of that for human
    relationships is that at any point, whether over a meal, a meeting or other shared activity, a
    person we’re with can just disappear, having ‘gone home’ to their smartphone.”
    This phenomenon was leading to the “death of proximity” when it comes to face-to-face
    interaction, he said.
    “This behaviour, and the frustration, disappointment or even offence it can cause, is what
    we’re calling the ‘death of proximity’. We are learning to live with the jeopardy that even
    when we are physically together, we can be socially, emotionally or professionally alone.”
    If there’s one specific cause for that transformation, the researchers suggest it may be chat
    apps such as WhatsApp, which they call the “heart of the smartphone”. “For many users
    across most regions, a single app now represents the most important thing that the
    smartphone does for them” – LINE in Japan, for instance, WeChat in China, and
    WhatsApp in Brazil.
    “These apps are the platforms where siblings come together to take care of elderly parents,
    proud parents send out endless photographs of their babies, and migrants reconnect with
    families; they are the means by which you can still be a grandparent even if living in
    another country.”
    Unlike many explorations of smartphone use, the study specifically focused on older
    adults, “those who consider themselves neither young nor elderly”.
    “At first an emphasis upon older people may appear strange because we have become so
    used to concentrating upon youth, once thought the natural users of smartphones,” the
    researchers wrote, “however, a focus upon older people has helped to extract the study of
    smartphones from any specific demographic niche so that they may be considered as the
    possession of humanity as a whole.”
    Even with that distinct focus, the researchers find that around the world smartphones are
    basic necessities. “The smartphone is perhaps the first object to challenge the house itself
    (and possibly also the workplace) in terms of the amount of time we dwell in it while
    awake,” they conclude, coining the term “transportal home” to describe the effect. “We are
    always ‘at home’ in our smartphone. We have become human snails carrying our home in
    our pockets.”

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