In this timely volume, James E. Katz, a leading authority on
social consequences of communication technology, analyzes the way
new mobile telecommunications affect daily life both in the United
States and around the world.
Magic in the Air is the most wide-ranging analysis of mobile
communication to date. Katz investigates the spectrum of social
aspects of the cell phone's impact on society and the way social
forces affect the use, display, and re-configuration of the cell
phone. Surveying the mobile phone's current and emerging role in
daily life, Katz finds that it provides many benefits for the user,
and that some of these benefits are subtle and even
counter-intuitive. He also identifies ways the mobile phone has not
been entirely positive. After reviewing these he outlines some
steps to ameliorate the mobile phone's negative effects. Katz also
discusses use and abuse of mobile phones in educational settings,
where he finds that their use is eroding students' participation in
class even as it is helping them to cheat on exams and cut class.
Parents no longer object to their children having mobile phones in
class in a post-Columbine and 9/11 era; instead they are pressing
schools to change their rules to allow students to have their
phones available during class. And mobile phone misbehavior is by
no means limited to students: Katz finds that teachers are
increasingly taking calls in the middle of class, even interrupting
their own lectures to answer what they claim are important
calls.
In keeping with the book's title, Katz explores the often
overlooked psychic and religious uses of the mobile phone, an area
that has only recently begun to command scholarly interest. Magic
in the Air will be essential reading for communications
specialists, sociologists, and social psychologists.
James E. Katz is professor of communication at Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey and director of the Rutgers
University Center for Mobile Communication Studies, the first
academic center dedicated to the study of social aspects of mobile
communication. His award-winning books include Perpetual Contact:
Mobile Communication, Private Talk and Public Performance
(co-edited with Mark Aakhus), Connections: Social and Cultural
Studies of the Telephone in American Life, published by
Transaction, and Social Consequences of Internet Use: Access,
Involvement, Expression (co-authored with Ronald E. Rice).
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