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As the aircraft glided into the final landing approach, the increased hum of the powerful engines delivering optimum speed for a safe landing were pierced with metallic high pitched beeps. As I started my routine scan to identify the offenders, I steeled myself to the inevitable: hardly any embarrassed faces. No furtive glances; No torsos arched forward with desperate hands groping in the pockets to switch the erring phone off. And no indignant glares. It has finally come to roost - our resigned acceptance of ubiquitous, pervasive and often invasive mobile communication.
After the Internet, perhaps one technology that has maximum impact on humanity is the mobile. It has influenced not just the communication medium but has also created a deep social, psychological, commercial and geographical impact on humanity at large.
As it continues to evolve, it will not only morph itself but also the society that uses it. The short messaging system is perhaps the most used (and abused) mobile utility. In addition to being a communication tool, it has now become a social phenomenon. Youngsters lead the usage - a smile on their faces as they catch up with each other and the latest chain SMS while scurrying between their job, studies or hobbies
And in an increasingly fast paced world where keeping in touch has become a challenging task, the mobile provides adults a means to stay connected conveniently. Research says that two third of human conversation is gossip. I must say that text messages aid gossip over the air - and bust age old stereotypes indicting the fairer sex.
Mobile with its capability of instant voting has also given a new meaning to reality shows. With participants' pleas goading the audience and viewers to send their votes through SMS, many get carried away little realizing the cost of the same. Mobile gaming will soon influence the social fabric, aiding both isolation and contact. Mobile canvassing is a powerful tool in shaping the social conscience; protest messages through en masse SMS, like the one seen in the Jessica Lal case have given a new dimension to the collective voice of hitherto unheard citizens.
There is even a unique name to this phenomenon : "Swarming" is characterized by 'autonomy, emergence and distributedness replacing control, pre-programming and centralization"
While the brave new world grapples with the social and behavioral impact, manufacturers continue to battle a potential turf war brewing between the hand phone manufacturers and network operators.
The former are making their phones music enabled, and will soon compete with the likes of ipod for the customers' ears, and itunes for the customers pockets. Once intelligence is built in these hand held devices, they can switch from the native to the Wi-Fi networks for internet access. The bastion of voice over IP may soon be breached with operators and hand set manufacturers independently exploring how to use this.
Perhaps it is the Generation Text - the tech savvy youngsters of today - that will lead the way in mobile usage. Today SMS dictionaries have been published. Collaborative text messaging - which is more complex and requires online presence - has started to add a new dimension. MMS - an application that is yet to take off, could well be the trend in future, blending rich audio and video messages instead of garbled short hand text. Before you know it, the battle of eyeballs will shift from PCs and TVs to converged hand held devices with mobiles leading all the way.
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