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Although mobile phones were conceived to make phone calls, convergence with other technologies (for example the camera, mp3 player and video player) has turned the mobile into a multi-media centre, crucial part of people’s lives, especially for the younger age groups (Mintel, 2005). There are certainly wider social issues that have also led to this level of adoption however. Content made accessible through the Internet and other digital channels has led to highly accessible content that is ‘on demand’. This has resulted in the consumer to expect content when and wherever they want it. The acceleration of modern life is also likely to have fuelled this desire for access to information and communication on the move (so called ‘cash rich, time poor’ consumer) to fulfil tasks in every moment of their day. Often the mobile is cited to be the only piece of technology you will need in the future and will ultimately become an all in one “digital tool set” (Webb, 2007), able to help its owner with every last task of life. I further this by suggesting this will occur when the full set of desktop-standard services becomes available for mobile, when the processing power that required to run these features is standard on the mobile platform. Nevertheless it is clear that the mobile phone is widely accepted as the platform most modern technologies and services will be aggregated on. The ‘mobile’ is here to stay, is making an increasingly large impact on society’s technological usage and will do so driven by the market’s desire to have everything useful available to them at all times and on one device.
As such the adoption of mobile phones is under pinned by wider social issues, making this investigation of what might be called the ‘mobile future of virtual worlds’ more than just a passing fad. In fact it is a response to how our society has changed and is operating today in a massively connected environment.
