Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface and acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: framing the issues
- PART I Mobile communication: national and comparative perspectives
- 2 Finland: a mobile culture
- 3 Israel: chutzpah and chatter in the Holy Land
- 4 Italy: stereotypes, true and false
- 5 Korea: personal meanings
- 6 United States: popular, pragmatic and problematic
- 7 France: preserving the image
- 8 The Netherlands and the USA compared
- 9 Bulgaria: mobile phones as post-communist cultural icons
- PART II Private talk: interpersonal relations and micro-behavior
- PART III Public performance: social groups and structures
- Appendixes
- Index
- References
3 - Israel: chutzpah and chatter in the Holy Land
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface and acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: framing the issues
- PART I Mobile communication: national and comparative perspectives
- 2 Finland: a mobile culture
- 3 Israel: chutzpah and chatter in the Holy Land
- 4 Italy: stereotypes, true and false
- 5 Korea: personal meanings
- 6 United States: popular, pragmatic and problematic
- 7 France: preserving the image
- 8 The Netherlands and the USA compared
- 9 Bulgaria: mobile phones as post-communist cultural icons
- PART II Private talk: interpersonal relations and micro-behavior
- PART III Public performance: social groups and structures
- Appendixes
- Index
- References
Summary
On a summer evening in 1999, a fully loaded bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem had just climbed to one of the highest points overlooking the city, ten minutes from its final destination. A young lady sitting a few seats behind the driver slipped her mobile phone from her purse, dialed a number, and put the phone to her ear. To the person on the other end of the line she said: “Okay, we've just passed Mevasseret [a suburb of Jerusalem], so we'll arrive in about ten minutes. Start moving and pick me up across from the Convention Center.” The bus driver, who had been busy maneuvering the complicated turns, suddenly looked up in his rear-view mirror and shouted: “No, lady, there's no stop there anymore!”
It seems every tourist visiting Israel in recent years comments on the omnipresence of mobile phones. The above anecdote is a wonderful example typifying not only the sheer numbers but also the particular nature of mobile telephone usage in Israel. In this chapter, we describe as well as seek to understand the unprecedented growth of mobile phone ownership and use in Israel. We also point out some unique characteristics of this medium, which seem to suit the Israeli culture and mentality so well, and hence make it ubiquitous.
Israelis spend impressive amounts of time talking on mobile phones.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Perpetual ContactMobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, pp. 30 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
References
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