Mobile Communities: Are We Talking About a Village, a Clan, or

A central issue in the adoption and use of information and communication tech nology is the degree to which it either contributes to or detracts from the dev elopment of social cohesion in the small group. When considering this question, one need recognize that the social dynamics of the mobile telephone are different from those of the Internet. The device affords pointtopoint interaction that makes us individually addressable regardless of where we or our interlocutors may be. This analysis draws on survey material from Scandinavia. It is based on a random sample of approximately 1,800 persons in Norway surveyed in December 2007 and January 2008. The data were collected with a Webbased survey of a known population, as supplemented with telephone interviews to cover those who traditionally do not use the Web (generally, persons older than 50 years of age). Data from two surveys of 15 to 24yearold Danes were included: one from 2004 (343 respondents) and one from 2006 (629 respondents). Research reported here, and by others,\u2028 has found that the mobile telephone contributes to the development and maintenance of social cohesion within the closest sphere of friends and family. If community is construed to be more restricted and a result of this type of cohesion, then it is different in character than that used when discussing netbased networking