SMS uses and issues in China, France and Poland

Dominique Desjeux

Member of the Scientific Council of Bouygues Telecom

Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Sorbonne (Université Paris 5)

29/07/2005

Introduction

According to researchers such as Christian Licoppe (2002), Carole-Anne Rivière (2002) and Gérard Gaglio[1] (2005), the use of SMS has exploded in Europe in less than three years, since 1999 in Scandinavia and since 2000/2001 in France and Italy: “Already in 1999, 650 million mini-messages were sent in a population of 5 million [in Finland]”, according to Carole-Anne Rivière citing Finnish sources. In 2001, 1 billion SMS were sent in France according to the operator Orange, cited by the same author.

In the field of telephony, mobile or fixed, and more generally in that of electronic information technologies, SMS is an interesting example of the spread of an innovation because it has occurred without the need for any special marketing action. Its spread has been spontaneous except in Poland where the later arrival of SMS meant that it was immediately associated with uses of mobile phones. Hence, its success is linked to invisible uses and associations that existed potentially in society before the expansion of SMS. It is interesting to review these in order to understand at least partially the logic underlying the spread of future innovations.

Hence the purpose of this article is to show the invisible uses that have been gradually revealed by surveys on SMS practices, especially qualitative ones and mostly on a micro-social scale[2], carried out in France (partly under my direction) by Catherine Lejealle (2003), in Poland by Malgorzata Kamieniczna (2004) and in China by Anne Sophie Boisard (2004). Another aim is to show the shared or singular practices of the three cultures analysed. The social uses of SMS in the world fit into a dynamic that is constantly evolving among users, from the youngest to the oldest, and are based on a written expression that constantly invents new codes or forms of the written language.

1 - SMS is used mostly by young people and with similar uses in the three cultures

In the three countries examined, China, France and Poland, most of the players in SMS communication are teenagers and young people. The term ‘young people’ covers a very diverse reality, as Isabelle Garabuau-Moussaoui has shown (in V Ciccheli, 2004). Here I use it in the widest sense, i.e. from secondary school and adolescence to entry in the labour market between 20 and 30 years of age.

SMS users in France tend to be young people, and above all teenagers. According to Gérald Gaglio, 78.5% of SMS users are under 25 (source: IPSOS). In the case of China, the young people who use mobile phones and SMS tend to be well-off, according to Anne Sophie Boisard. In Poland, the penetration rate of mobile phones was only 44% in 2003, with young people making up a large proportion of the users.

In the three cultures, young people use SMS messages to manage three types of relationships: with their family, with friends and with their work, in the latter case mostly with peers. Most of the time the sending of SMS complies with the implicit social norms of communication, i.e. those of the social hierarchy in force in each society, on the one hand, and those determined by affective distance or proximity, on the other hand (Isabelle Garabuau-Moussaoui, Dominique Desjeux (eds.), 2000). Thus, a young Chinese explains that he will never exchange an e-mail with his teacher and that this practice is reserved for relations with his peers (Anne Sophie Boisard). In China, as in the other countries analysed, SMS appears to be a tool mostly used for managing relationships with friends and family. With the parents this will depend, of course, on their ability to use the SMS. There appears to be a clear generation gap in the three cultures between young people who know how to use mobiles and SMS and the parents who can neither send nor receive SMS text messages.

The use of SMS, like any other social practice, follows three rules whose frontiers are very fluid: what is prescribed, for example the obligation to write to one’s parents without making spelling mistakes; what is permitted, like sending SMS to close friends using abbreviations or spelling mistakes; and what is forbidden, like sending an SMS to a hierarchical superior.

Sending SMS messages is linked as much to the numerous everyday occasions that trigger its use, such as arranging to meet someone, asking for information, discussing the shopping list, asking about someone’s health or spirits, or sharing an amusing story or joke, as it is to major events such as New Year’s Day in France or the Spring Festival in China, days on which the number of SMS soars.

In all three countries we find the four main functions of social communication: utilitarian, e.g. arranging to meet or asking the code of the entrance to the building when it is forgotten in France; phatic, e.g. keeping in contact, such as the famous “t’es où?” (where are you?) in French; emotive, e.g. saying that you love someone or handling a conflict; and playful, e.g. the use of punning tones in Chinese or telling jokes in France and Poland.

This social management takes into account the technical constraints of the mobile phone: the memory limited to 10 messages and the number of characters limited to 160[3], as well as the budget constraints of young people and the social constraints established by each culture. All these constraints confer on SMS the social function of reducing the cost and content of the message. Part of the uses and meaning of SMS are organised around this reductive function, though it is not the only function.

Hence, understanding the social use of SMS requires a strategic analysis that shows how SMS is mobilised to cut down the economic costs of communication, an analysis of the uses which shows that they are a means of reducing the human costs of social transactions, and an analysis of the SMS message content to show how the language is reduced and the meaning of the communication is compressed.

2 – A dominant strategy among young people: minimising the costs which maintaining the social link

As with any new communication technology, SMS is being integrated into the communication mechanism already in place, consisting mainly of face to face contact between people, the telephone, the Internet and the computer, plus the games console in certain cases.

Young people, in most urban cultures, are subjected to a dual constraint in managing this system: a social network of peers quite demanding as regards the quality of the social links and their maintenance, which can be costly, on the one hand, and strict budget limits on the other hand. This leads young people to adopt varied strategies designed to optimise the costs of communicating and of maintaining their social links. These strategies are themselves influenced by the pricing policy of mobile or land line telephone operators, by that of Internet access providers and by the relationship that young people have with their parents, one of the sources of their budget.

The sharp rise in the use of mobile telephones partly explains the success of SMS since 2000. In 1993, only 170,000 people in France used a mobile. By 2003, the number had risen to 40 million (Corinne Martin, 2003).

The success of SMS is also highly dependent on pricing strategies. In Poland, for example, the use of the mobile phone in 2004 became cheaper than for fixed telephones. So young people buy mobile telephones to enable them to send SMS messages and thus maintain their social networks at a reduced cost. The mobile and SMS thus become two strategic tools in making young people independent, another explanation for their success.

Striving for independence is one of the key behaviours of young people, as most surveys on young people demonstrate (Vincenzo Cicchelli, 2001, 2004). However, this independence also carries a cost, the social control that the peer group exercises on its members through the use of the mobile phone, particularly when it becomes involved in romantic relationships or friendships within the group. As with any new technology, the use of SMS produces both positive and negative social effects.

The budget constraint explains why in Poland there are young people who use their mobile only to send SMS messages. This enables them to maintain relations with their friends at the lowest cost. And when the parents call them, they can use their mobile without any cost. When an urgent need arises, the mobile is used to limit the problems, reduce the uncertainties or the risks, and the cost of the communication becomes secondary.

As in France and in China, the pre-paid card enables young Poles to control their spending and hence reassure their parents. So one of the main advantages of SMS for young people with a low budget is to be able to communicate while considerably minimising the costs. Thus, in Poland, some young people use the callback request function that they call arrows to express the idea of quickness when they want to signal that they can be called, thus avoiding the need to pay for the call. Some young people also wait for the second ring before answering to make sure that the caller will not have to pay if it is a callback request. This is the cheapest practice, which externalises the cost of the call to the parents and some friends with more spending money.

More generally, young people adopt different communication media during the sedentary and mobile phases of their activities, naturally opting for the mobile phone when they are on the move. But at Christmas, for example, a young Pole explains that sending out greetings by SMS would cost too much. However, with no time constraints and free access to the Internet, he waits until he can sit down at the computer to send his greetings. The strategy is the same with the parent’s telephone or the office computer for those working. The mobility of the mobile phone allows independence and instantaneous communication, but with a cost constraint, whereas the use of the fixed telephone or Internet access belonging to others cuts out the cost but carries a different time constraint.

In all these cases, young people juggle more or less consciously between the cost and the need to maintain the social link, as well as between availability, down time, mobility and urgency. The maintenance of this social link fits into a series of strategic practices that structure the uses of SMS.

3 SMS as a tool for reducing the human costs of social transactions

In terms of method, the diversity of practices observed is the only phenomenon that can be scientifically generalised in a qualitative approach, since the frequencies can have only an indicative value. What varies is the importance of these various practices in terms of cultures, generations, sexes or social strata. Thus, in Poland, the politeness codes are much stricter than in France. Kissing a woman’s hand is still common among men, as is the small bow with which young women greet a hierarchical superior. This may explain why a stricter spelling in SMS messages is more frequent in Poland. “I’m not a purist”, says a young Pole aged 22, “but I pay great attention to my language, the syntax, the spelling, everything” (Malgorzata Kamieniczna).

The diversity of practices is very similar in China, France and Poland with regard to the four basic uses of SMS: utilitarian, phatic, emotive and playful. What varies is the intensity of each of these practices.

The utilitarian function is mobilised to arrange where to meet in order to synchronise friends’ arrival at the same place, to cheat in exams (as a young Chinese mentioned), to check a product on a shelf display, to enable parents to check up on their children or to catch an amorous partner out in some deception. The potential utilitarian uses are practically unlimited. But they are still bound by the constraints of social interplay, by the budget of each player and by their competence in manipulating the SMS or mobile technical functions which, in the three countries, reveal a generational gap between young people and older people.

The emotive function is mobilised in all three countries. In France, Catherine Lejealle (2003) shows how SMS has become an important tool in the construction of an amorous relationship between young people aged 23 to 25. SMS enables them to stay in daily contact when the couple does not live together, for example. SMS messages give the reassurance that the other person is still “connected” with oneself, to use the expression of Christian Licoppe (2002). These messages can then become addictive, so that “you become totally dependent on the mobile and you need a new dose by calling back every five minutes”.

The phatic function can take the form of a ritual when the couple call each other regularly in the morning, the afternoon or the evening (Catherine Lejealle). The SMS message is then an important sign that the contact is still there. This aspect becomes more important than the content of the message. Il means the renewal of the callers’ closeness. In certain ways it plays the role of the bouquet of flowers, at least in cultures that assign an amorous value to the gift of flowers, which is not the case in all cultures as Jack Goody showed in The Culture of Flowers (1993).

Thus, the SMS message has an asynchronous phatic function, i.e. with an inbuilt time lag like a letter, post-it, voicemail message or email and unlike a telephone call or face to face contact. In Poland, for example, the SMS messages sent by mobile can be used like a diary: “people reread their SMS messages to reassure themselves that their relationships are solid” (Malgorzata Kamieniczna). Here SMS plays the role of a short-term memory, a condensed memory that provides affective security.

Emotional communication requires social players to be strategists especially when there are risks of conflict. The SMS message then becomes an effective tool in managing uncertainty and reducing tensions. A Polish girl explains that “if I want to stay longer with someone or in a pub, I send an SMS to my mother or I call her”. So if she arrives home late the remarks of her parents will be milder. Thus, the SMS can reduce the emotional content of a potentially conflictual situation. These messages also enable people to limit their face to face contacts when they are too difficult to handle emotionally, as well as to compensate for the distance and the impossibility of face to face contact when this is desired.

SMS favours the neutralisation of conflicts with the family, with friends or within the couple thanks to the ambiguity between oral and written expression that it allows: it is written but with a short memory that minimises the risks of conflicts linked to the authority of the written word; its form is oral expression owing to its brief and often phonetic style, and this helps to reduce the emotive power or conflict potential of the content of the message. That is why, in China, SMS can be reinterpreted as a new way of managing the face (mian) of others. That is what a young Chinese woman expresses when she says: “I feel that using the message without the voice allows us to express better what is in our mind. With the SMS you can say what it is difficult to say face to face”. (Anne Sophie Boisard).

To sum up, Catherine Lejealle distinguishes between inoffensive words and risky words in the use of SMS. Inoffensive words are those involving everyday texts, “the temperature outdoors”, “the waiting time for trains on Line 3”, “have you already eaten?” or “bring some chocolate éclairs”. Risky words involve conflicts, lies, delicate subjects: “I’m the one who sent the mini-message to say I’m sorry. It did cost an effort, but a mini-message costs me less than saying it orally. And as soon as he got it he called me back”. Here the SMS has a very useful function in reducing the human cost by reducing the cost of the emotional transaction.

Finally, the playful function is used very frequently between friends. In Poland it can be mobilised when a group of friends stay in contact by sharing jokes. In China, a key aspect is the creation of puns based on the 4 tones of Chinese characters in Mandarin. In a survey that we carried out in China with Zheng Lihua and Anne Sophie Boisard we came across the misfortune that befell Peugeot, called Biaozi (pretty) in Chinese. If the tone is changed, Biaozi then means prostitute and this radically changes the meaning of a famous advertisement of Peugeot whose slogan was: “Peugeot of Canton offers you its best services”, which then becomes “The Canton prostitute offers you her best services” (Zheng Lihua et al., 2003). This example of punning on tones is one of the bases of playful communication by SMS in China. Other uses are also possible, though they may not always be appreciated. A Chinese girl explains that she does “not like exaggerated jokes” like the sexual messages that one of her friends sends her and which upset her. When her friend “asks if she has received and read the message” she feels quite embarrassed.

This brief review of some uses of SMS shows that it is a means of reducing the human costs but also a source of tension and conflict. More generally, we may conclude that SMS fits into the social interplay with family and friends and that it is a malleable tool whose flexibility allows very varied reinterpretations as we will see when we look into the content of SMS.

4 – The content of SMS, between haiku, post-it and rebus: the reduction of language in China, France and Poland

As Carole-Anne Rivière notes (2002), the great originality of SMS is that it “deconsecrates writing”. That is what gives it its malleability, especially among young people, based on three main writing practices: phonetic, creative or classic without spelling mistakes. The choice of which type of writing to use depends, as we have seen, on the type of social relationship that is expressed through the SMS message.

The flexibility of SMS, between the written and spoken word, both brief and temporary, is also expressed via the connections it permits with other types of communication. Thus, for Carole-Anne Rivière, the brevity and simplicity of SMS reminds her metaphorically of the haiku, the classic Japanese poem of 3 lines and 17 syllables. Another point of similarity is with the post-it as a convivial medium for short and quickly written messages that likewise trigger the memory and, just like SMS, usually have only a short span of life, as we showed with Isabelle Ras and Sophie Taponier in 1998. Finally, SMS messages remind me of the rebus with its pictograms (smiley), figures, onomatopoeias or phonetic passages that have to be read out loud to be deciphered.

I want to look here into the transformations of writing whose principal functions are to save time, economise on the number of characters, transgress against the established norms, personalise the message or create a group identity by developing an esoteric language.

The first form of creativity I wish to look at involves the description of using SMS. In Poland, the verb “esemesować" in polish as “to essemesse” in English is used to mean sending SMS messages; the expression “shoot an arrow” describes the cheap callback function; and “to get caught by a voicemail” to explain that you were not able to signal your call without being connected and thus without having to pay.

The second form of creativity is perhaps more specific to China. It involves using SMS on the mobile telephone with software for entering the Chinese characters, Bihua or Wubi, or by using American keyboards without accents to enter the Western letters in Pinyin and then in Chinese characters, or by using foreign languages like English or French, all of which permit a certain mixing of languages.

The third form is more composite. Its objective is to explore all the ways of writing in shorter format.

In French, we find abbreviations like jtm for je t’aime, rdv for rendez-vous and pb for problème (Carole-Anne Rivière). Certain Polish words are also shortened, so that pozdrowiena (“greetings/hi”) becomes pozdr, ja powierdzialam (“I said”) becomes ja pow, and odpisz (“answer me”) becomes odp. (Malgorzata Kamieniczna).

In the three cultures, foreign words may replace words that are too long, or in China when the Chinese characters are too complicated. In Poland, Polish words are often replaced by shorter English words. The practice is the same in France, with today instead of aujourd’hui. Spanish may also be used (Carole-Anne Rivière). In China, English words are inserted into messages in Chinese.

Another way of saving time, in Poland, consists of eliminating spaces and indicating new sentences by capital letters. In China also, the punctuation can disappear or be reduced to the minimum

A more sophisticated and playful practice is the use of phonetics and onomatopoeia, as in French: “C moi ki tapel toujours” = “c’est moi qui t’appelle toujours” or “het” for “acheter” (Carole-Anne Rivière). In China, the two people communicating become “u & me” for “you and me” (Anne Sophie Boisard).

Signs and pictograms draw close to the rebus. In general, they are used to express emotions. In Poland, “o) ou :) means I’m happy, 0( ou :( means I’m unhappy, ;) means I’m joking, -/ means I’m not sure and : -@ means I’m shouting” (Malgorzata Kamieniczna).

I found a rather far-out and much more sophisticated example in a chat message, written in French ‘verlan’ slang: “quinerou je metai meuco connepair” for “rouqine je t’aime comme personne” (Hilary Bays, 2005, forthcoming). And, of course, spelling mistakes may be included as a transgression or time-saving device, as well as real misspellings.

Finally, all these practices are designed to save time, reduce the number of characters, create a language that only the initiated can understand, transgress against the norms of adults, exclude oneself from society or write poetically.

Conclusion

Some people see in this shrinking of the language of SMS a threat to the national language, a tool in the construction of communities of young people whose cement is the invention of new languages independent of the adult world, or as a danger that cuts young people off from society and excludes them from the labour market. SMS reflects all this ambivalence in its creativity, its transgressiveness, its construction of social identity and exclusion.

But SMS is also a new tool, the fruit of two innovations: electronic writing that speeds up communication via the Internet, and communication via the mobile phone that allows social interaction at a distance even when on the move, which used to be down time. That is why it is both a flexible tool and one subject to constraints. It can permit both independence and checking up on people, licit as well as illicit actions, and serves both crime and law enforcement.

For the time being, this form of communication is highly generation-specific, young people of both sexes, although the question of the existence of two languages, male and female, or just one language, remains open. And its sphere remains restricted to friends and family.

Finally, by picking three countries whose cultures are seemingly highly divergent, we have been able to see practices that are relatively similar among the populations of young people observed. The differences are due as much to the different times of exposure to the mobile phone and SMS technologies, leading to different penetration rates, as to the differences in social interactions with friends and family. Rather than introducing drastic changes in its users’ relationships with family, friends or workmates, SMS, for the moment, is simply fitting into the forms of socialisation or social protest that pre-existed before it. It is following the classic pattern of the spread of a technical innovation.

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Retour à la sous-rubrique :

	English

Autres publications de la sous-rubrique :

2008 06, Roberta Dias Campos, Innovation (From the boook by Everett Rogers) 2007 11 8-9, Beijing, China, lecture given by Dominique Desjeux, Introducing Anthropology of Consumption. Understanding Daily Life in China 2007, 09 29, D. Desjeux, Working in multicural teams 2007 07, D. Desjeux, Introducing anthropology of Consumption: a methodological point of view 2004, D. Desjeux, Introducing Anthropology of Consumption 2003, D. Desjeux, understanding innovation 2003, S. Alami, D. Desjeux,Practices and representations of cooking and meals in France 2002, D. Desjeux, Zheng Lihua, The itinerary method: comparing intercultural daily life: The case of Guangzhou, China 1999, D. Desjeux, Rituals as means of Moving into action 1999, D. Desjeux, The imaginary of mobility: the quest for renewal 1998, D. Desjeux, May 1968 : Testimony of a Left-wing Liberal in May 68 at Nanterre in France 1988, D. Desjeux, Essay on training in culture 1998, D. Desjeux, Rituals as a means of Moving into action 1996, D. Desjeux, scales of observation 2002, Dominique Desjeux, Anthropology of Mobility 2007, 11, Dominique Desjeux , Beijing, China, Introducing Anthropology of Consumption