BBC NEWS | Technology | 3G mobiles ‘change social habits’

How do you use your 3G phone?

• Social gatekeepers: Fulcrum of a social network and use 3G mobiles to keep friends up to date
• Piratopians: Creative outsiders who use 3G phones to make short films and other broadcasts
• High Street hedonists: Use phones to show off new purchases, take pictures of items or asked for instant opinions from a dressing room

A study by The Future Laboratory concluded :

“Bloggers, film-makers and clubbers all benefit from 3G phones”

“The report’s authors dubbed the new generation of mobile phone users Generation C, with C meaning content. As well as offering bloggers the chance to post instantly to their own sites, researchers saw 3G phones used as a counterpoint to retailing, socialising, and as a tool for documenting their lives.”

“Men used the technical capabilities of their phones more extensively than women, the report suggested, often adopting fictional personas to make amateur news reports, dubbed the “Andrew Marr effect” by researchers.” Some women used their phones to take pictures of taxi drivers in an effort to guarantee personal safety. The increasing use of camera and video capabilities has already opened up new opportunities for phone users to contribute to news coverage on TV and online. And the time-honoured blind date could soon fall out of fashion, if the report’s conclusions are correct. More and more people might use 3G phones to check out a potential date before meeting them, or use video calls as part of an interactive dating service. “

I have enough problems with my ordinary phone …