ABSTRACT
The portable nature of smartphone and tablet computers is a crucial element in the ubiquitous internet. Yet, the ubiquity of the internet reaches beyond the existence of software-based mobile devices for going online and the associated abundance of communication and metadata. What is distinct about mobile internet is not only the character of the internet on mobile devices, but the fact that the internet becomes accessible anytime, anywhere (e.g., Campbell, 2013; Humphreys et al, 2013). Arguably, ubiquity itself has an experiential dimension concerned with the emergent layer of meanings of access to and communication on pocket-size, portable entry-points for going online in various situations in everyday life. The smartphone may be seen to represent the example par excellence of mobile internet. Echoing the work of Ito and Okabe (2005) on mobile phones (or keitai, as it is termed in Japanese), the smartphone is not just about ‘a new technological capability or freedom of motion, but about a snug and intimate technosocial tethering, a personal device supporting communications that are a constant, lightweight, and mundane presence in everyday life’ (Ito, 2005, p. 1) That is to say, the smartphone is a cultural object continuously infused with meaning as it is used and inextricably interwoven in the practice of everyday life.
