People who don’t know each other are using sophisticated mobile net devices to act in concert. Cell phones, pagers and PDAs are shaping modern culture.
The concept has caught on where cliques of people hang out together all day, despite being in different places, by sending and receiving text transmissions on their telephones. Demonstrators rely on wireless telephones to coordinate their actions and evade barricades. In cities techno-hipsters can congregate in “WiFi” areas that interact with their wireless devices to let them participate in a virtual social scene. Example: upscale prostitutes can enter their services and prices into their mobile phones, allowing customers to discreetly determine if anyone nearby is selling what they want to buy.
Mobile, wireless, net-connected devices are now prompting a world of “ad-hocracy,” in which people cluster temporarily around information of mutual interest. Consumerism might change when pedestrians, as their mobiles detect stores and restaurants, patch into electronic gossip about an establishment. A wireless urban space is pervasively connected to the Internet.