In the sprawling, oft-cavernous mazes of Tokyo’s train stations such as Shinjuku and Shibuya roam the hip-dressed creatures of oyayubi-zoku. Yes, the oyayubi-zoku are the ubiquitous “thumb tribes” of Japan, young people who are constantly thumbing text messages, downloading pictures, or doing other e-transactions using their keitai, the mobile phone handsets.
The thumb tribes are adept at using the keypad of the mobile phones to do an astonishing variety of electronic tasks. Given the long commutes of Tokyo, and the ban on doing voice conversations in trains, it is no wonder that Japan has spawned these thumb tribes.
Technology, however, is never neutral. The growth of the thumb tribes has an unintended consequence. Japan was a nation of voracious readers, much of it facilitated by the long commutes on trains. No matter that over 40% of the reading was in the form of “manga”, the famed illustrated comics with wide-eyed Anime characters, it was still reading. Even the comic-strip manga tackled complex subjects such as global warming or AIDS. Now, the oyayubi-zoku are forsaking reading in droves and turning to thumbing. By some estimates, after the popularity of i-Mode and similar technologies, book publishing in Japan has dropped by 20% or more.
But wait! Can these thumb tribes emerge and survive in poor countries, such as those of South Asia? You bet they can, with proper motivation. Here is a story of a maid working in a rich Bangladesh household. The maid asked the rich, educated lady of the house if she could use the lady’s mobile phone to inquire about the health of a relative back in the village. The lady of the house agreed and asked for the number. The maid was illiterate and said she did not know the number. The maid took the mobile phone, however, and punched in a sequence of numbers and got connected to the village.
Amazed at this, the lady of the household asked: “How did you do it? You do not know how to read or write!” The maid replied: “It is true, Madam… I am illiterate, but I know which keys to push on the keypad!”
Rather than lamenting or celebrating the oyayubi-zoku of rich and educated Japan, perhaps it is time to promote and motivate oyayubi-zoku in the illiterate and semi-literate populations of South Asia and Africa. The mobile keypad holds the promise of bridging the growing digital divides of these regions of the world.
….er….gotta go…. that’s my cell phone ringing…!!
Nik Dholakia
