Abstract
This chapter builds on the notion that humans, who have appropriated mobile phones and incorporated them into their everyday lives since the 1980s have, in so doing, created their own personal social robot. It asserts that the constant always on connectivity afforded by this device is enabling a communicable stream of consciousness and emotions that are intertwined between the mobile phone and their emotional self. This, in turn has created a dependence and attachment to the device, to the relationships it mediates and more, such that it is so fully integrated into people’s day-to-day living they cannot imagine how to conduct everyday life without it. The outcome of this human and machine interaction, and the electronic emotions it imbues, is a device that has become an emotionalised social robot that is exclusive to its user.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In this chapter I use the generic term ‘mobile phone’.
- 2.
http://www.doro.co.uk/Products/Mobile-phones-and-accessories/Doro-PhoneEasy-508-UK/ (accessed 19 November 2014).
- 3.
http://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-6/?cid=wwa-uk-kwg-iphone-com (accessed 19 November 2014).
- 4.
http://www.sony-aibo.co.uk/ (accessed November 28 2014).
- 5.
http://www.parorobots.com/ (accessed November 28 2014).
- 6.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/08/paro-robot-seal-dementia-patients-nhs-japan (accessed November 28 2014).
- 7.
http://asimo.honda.com/ (accessed 3 December 2014).
- 8.
Who is NAO? http://www.aldebaran.com/en/humanoid-robot/nao-robot (accessed 3 December 2014).
- 9.
http://www.geminoid.jp/en/robots.html (accessed 3 December 2014).
- 10.
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/slideshow/564921/androids-will-greet-guests-japanese-smart-hotel/?image=3 (accessed 3 February 2015).
- 11.
http://www.geminoid.jp/projects/CREST/Hugvie.html (accessed 3 December 2014).
References
Breazeal C (2003) Emotion and sociable humanoid robots. Int J Hum Comput Stud 29:119–155
Dautenhahn K (2004) Robots we like to live with?!—a developmental perspective on a personalized, life-long robot companion. In: Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, Kurashiki, Okayama, 20–22 Sept 2004
Dautenhahn K, Nehaniv CL, Walters NL, Robins B, Kose-Bagci H, Mirza NA, Blow M (2009) KASPAR—a minimally expressive humanoid robot for human-robot interaction research. Appl Bionics Biomech Hum Robots 6(3–4):369–397
Ferber S (2013) How the Internet of things changes everything. Harvard business review innovation 7 May 2013. https://hbr.org/2013/05/how-the-internet-of-things-cha/. Accessed 28 Nov 2014
Ferrando F (2014) Is the post-human a post-woman? Cyborgs, robots, artificial intelligence and the futures of gender: a case study. Eur J Future Res 2:43. doi:10.1007/s40309-014-0043-8
Fortunati L (2013) Afterword: robot conceptualizations between continuity and innovation. Intervalla Platform Intellect Exch 1:116–129
Fortunati L, Pertierra R, Vincent J (2012) (eds) Migration, diaspora and information technologies in global societies. Routledge, New York
Goffman E (1959) The presentation of self in everyday life. Penguin Books Edition, Middlesex
Kaerlein T (2012) Presence in a pocket: phantasms of immediacy in Japanese mobile telepresence robotics. Communication +1 1(6). http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cpo/vol1/iss1/6. Accessed 30 Nov 2014
Ling R, Pederson P (eds) (2005) Mobile communications: renegotiation of the social sphere. Springer, London, pp 203–218
Mead GH (1967) Mind, self and society. Chicago University Press, University of Chicago
Maldonado T (2003) The body: artificialization and transparency. In: Fortunati L, Katz JE, Riccini R (eds) Mediating the human body: technology, communications and fashion. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah
Nitsch V, Popp M (2014) Emotions in robot psychology. Biol Cybern 108:621–629. doi:10.1007/s00422-014-0594-6
Novikova J, Watts L, Bryson J (2014) The role of emotions in inter-action selection. Interact Stud 15(2):216–223. doi:10.1075/is.15.2.10nov
Sugiyama S (2013) Melding with the self, melding with relational partners, and turning into a quasi-social robot: a Japanese case study of people’s experiences of emotion and mobile devices. Intervalla Platform Intellect Exch 1:71–84
Syrdal DS, Koay KL, Walters ML, Dautenhahn K (2007) A personalized robot companion? The role of individual differences on spatial preferences in HRI scenarios. In: Proceedings of the 16th IEEE international conference on robot and human interactive communication WC3-2, Jeju, Korea, 26–29 Aug 2007
Vincent J (2003) Emotion and mobile phones. In: Nyiri K (ed) Communications in the 21st century mobile democracy essays on society, self and politics. Passagen, Vienna, pp 215–224
Vincent J (2006) Emotional attachment and mobile phones. Knowl Technol Policy 19(1):39–44
Vincent J (2009) Emotion, my mobile, my identity. In: Vincent J, Fortunati L (eds) Electronic emotion: the mediation of emotion via information communication technologies. Peter Lang, Oxford
Vincent J (2010) Living with mobile phones. In: Höflich JR, Kircher GF, Linke C, Schlote I (eds) Mobile media and the change of everyday life. Peter Lang, Berlin
Vincent J (2013) Is the mobile phone a personalized social robot? Intervalla Platform Intellect Exch 1:60–70
Vincent J (2014) What’s so special about the mobile phone? exploring the mobile phone as a legacy of its ICT progenitors. In: Denison T, Sarrica T, Stillman L (eds) Theories and practice for community and social informatics. Monash University, Melbourne
Vincent J, Fortunati L (2009) Electronic emotion: the mediation of emotion via information and communication technologies. Peter Lang, Oxford
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vincent, J. (2015). The Mobile Phone: An Emotionalised Social Robot. In: Vincent, J., Taipale, S., Sapio, B., Lugano, G., Fortunati, L. (eds) Social Robots from a Human Perspective. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15672-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15672-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15671-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15672-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)