ABSTRACT
The first generation analogue cellular mobile phone was launched in Australia in 1987. Mobiles quickly grew in popularity, their envisaged users broadening beyond business people (Goggin 2006b). To provide sufficient capacity and future advanced services, second generation digital mobile networks were launched in 1993, with Australia choosing the European Global System for Mobiles (GSM) standard (Goggin 2008a). It was during this period in the 1900s that mobile phones rapidly diffused across the Australian population, and become strongly associated with youth, occasioning either positive or negative feelings. On the one hand, phone companies, handset manufacturers and providers
were keen to tap into opportunities offered by the youth market, as a contemporary news report noted:
Mobile phones are no longer exclusive to the business community and Yuppies, with young people representing the market’s highest growth segment … [Telstra’s] new commercial speaks to young people in their own language, using big, bright and bold images.
