ABSTRACT
Debra, who cannot drive because of a visual impairment, takes buses and light rail to go everywhere. This gives her many opportunities to observe how her fellow passengers use their technology devices. The vast majority of riders own smartphones even though many if not most appear to be in the lower-income brackets, either earning barely enough money to make ends meet, or surviving on the paltry disability income allotted to them. This suggests to Debra that the smartphone is no longer a “new product” available mainly to innovators and early adopters. She also cannot help overhearing people conversing on their smartphones and wonders what has become of privacy. She herself takes and makes calls when she is in transit, so she shares this peculiar public-private space with her fellow technology users. Perhaps it is not so different from talking on the phones of old, with their “party lines,” or the phones on the walls of kitchens, where parents could overhear every word their privacy-deprived teenaged offspring uttered.
