Constant Touch: A Global History of the Mobile Phone

Jon Agar

Feb 2013 · Icon Books Ltd

About this ebook

Mobile phones are a ubiquitous technology with a fascinating history. There are now as many mobile phones in the world as there are people. We carry them around with us wherever we go. And while we used to just speak into them, now mobiles are used to do all kinds of tasks, from talking to twittering, from playing a game to paying a bill.
Jon Agar takes the mobile to pieces, tracing what makes it work, and puts it together again, showing how it was shaped in different national contexts in the United States, Europe, the Far East and Africa. He tells the story from the early associations with cars and the privileged, through its immense popular success, to the rise of the smartphone.
Few scientific revolutions affect us in such a day-to-day way as the development of the mobile phone. Jon Agar's deft history explains exactly how this revolution has come about - and where it may lead in the future.

Ratings and reviews

In a world with rapidly developing and constantly shifting technology, Agar approaches these technologies from a fundamental constant: people use technology. This, in turn, allows readers to better understand mobile technology not through their wizz-bang development cycles and swiss army knife approach to usefulness, but rather through grasping the essential understanding that technology is made by people, for people. This book covers almost all aspects of the history of the mobile phone by initially helping us understand the concept of mobility itself. It is also the most comprehensive work that follows the tracks of mobile phones throughout history without getting bogged down by attempting to be encyclopedic in nature. It delves not only into the technologies that make mobile phones, but the human, social aspects of their emergence, along with the resulting ramifications of their use. As one of the most rapidly developing fields, this book is a must read for anyone searching for a better understanding of mobile phones, as well as for research into the future.

About the author

Jon Agar is currently Senior Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at University College London and was previously director of the National Archive for the History of Computing.