ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I explore the lives of migrants and how they have been transformed by the availability of ubiquitous access to mobile phones and the Internet in their new place of residence. This present study draws on 10 years of my own research of mobile phone and information and communications technologies (ICT) users in the UK (Vincent, 2010; Vincent & Harper, 2003) and on my further studies with international scholars exploring migration and diaspora in global societies (Fortunati, Pertierra, & Vincent, 2102a). In combining this research, I aim to show how this increased global access to mobile phones and the Internet, during the last decade in particular, has transformed the relationships between migrants and their left-behind families and friends, as well as with their commercial and business links. In the past, bidding farewell to a family member about to embark upon a new life in another town or country many miles away could be a traumatic experience with no certainty of when, if ever, they would be heard of again. Today, with a mobile phone and an email address in their pocket, the separation between migrant and their family, friends, and business contacts need only be one merely of physical location: almost everyone can now be immediately contactable at the press of a key. Furthermore, communications media exist that enable always-on, person-to person contact via voice, text, or video, as well as many other forms of connectivity such as satellite television, Internet sites, and news media.
