Jeffrey Boase

Mobile Webphones in Japan Survey Data Contact Information

Biography
Jeffrey Boase is doctoral student in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto and a doctoral fellow at the National Center for Digital Government at Harvard University. He has published papers about mobile phone use in Japan, the international digital divide, cyber cafés, the diffusion of computer viruses, and the Internet’s effect on community. His dissertation examines how the Internet is used by most Americans to maintain strong and weak social ties. To explore this topic, Mr. Boase has designed a telephone survey in collaboration with Barry Wellman and the Pew Internet & American Life Project. He is currently using the results of this survey to write his dissertation.

Position Paper
We find that webphones are most often used to keep in constant contact with strong/intimate ties, while PC email is used to contact both strong and weak ties. We explain these results by referring to the “social affordances” of both technologies. The interface provided by PC-based email allows for formal and information-rich messages, making it suitable for contact with weak ties where a shared knowledge may be limited and formality is often expected. In contrast, the webphone interface limits the length of the message, making it more amenable for use in short messages that either coordinate everyday activities with close family and friends (i.e. picking up milk on the way home from work) or maintain a sense of connectedness.

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