IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013 - 42

space regardless of message types
or configurations of messages.
Messages can be, and often are,
multiplexed, asynchronous, and
incomplete. In some instances,
communication is synchronous and
messages are received, clarified,
and exchanged. However with cell
phone usage, no matter whether
driving or walking, there is evidence
that it inhibits people's ability to
be fully present [4]. we consider
whether or not people truly need to
be fully present to form community.

Discussion
Adaptation
Dunbar [31] proposed numerical
limits to the capacity of people to
maintain social relationships based
on neocortical limits, perhaps as
small as 350-300 unique relationships [32]. we argue that even if
there are neocortical limits for
maintaining relationships, applying this limit in modern populations does not take into account the
development of cultural tools for
lowering the processing limits for
relationships (e.g., kinship terms,
clans, clubs), nor for the impact
of technological advances (email,
messaging, or social computing).
In the present case of cell phones
and their impact on local attention
to the immediate locale, even if we
accept what appears to be good
evidence from several psychological studies of individuals regarding
their diminishment of attention to
some circumstances while using
cell phones, it does not indicate this
is necessarily an intrinsic problem,
just one for which no cultural and/
or technological means is yet generally distributed to support widespread adaptive capabilities.
Our hypothesis is that people
will eventually adapt to these new
patterns of communication and traverse information about all locales,
local and otherwise that they and
others operate within. The commonality between results where people
are using cellphones and situations
42

where people are required to "think
hard" (e.g., process a lot of information) [33] supports this hypothesis.
Currently, usage of new communications and information navigation induces contexts that challenge
individuals in ways for which they
do not have access to established
solutions or strategies; everyone
rolls their own. However, others will
learn successful tactics, strategies,
and skills from others. This suggests
that on a group-by-group basis,
adaptive understandings and behaviors are forming, bits of which will
eventually form the successful adaptations of the future widely available
as choices.

Adaptive Radiation
The rapid changes that have
emerged as a result of mobile
communications are resulting in
behaviors that people did not have
previously. These behaviors are
adaptations to the technology. To
the extent these are successful they
either support communications
between individuals or support the
individual in managing their communications. The lack of a common
set of behaviors indicates that there
is, in effect, a process of adaptive
radiation underway, where many
different solutions are emerging for
the same problems. The best elements of these solutions are propagated and the worst eliminated, and
new hybrid solutions emerge.
There is then a basis for identifying evidence for processes of
adaptation on the part of some
people (and correspondingly some
technologies), groups or communities with respect to the local
dislocation issue. Indeed, in this
period of adaptive radiation, we
would expect to find many adaptive approaches. Just as neocortical
limitations have not held people
back from creating solutions and
adaptations to so many innovations over the years, we should
not expect this to be the case here.
People, especially as a group,
have in past adapted to extremely

hazardous and complex situations,
such as urban environments, poor
sanitation and endemic conflict.
Adaptation to the ubiquitous use
of cell phones should not exceed
the capacity of humans to adapt as
a group, through a combination of
individually being informed from
a collective repertoire of possible
behaviors and interpretations, and
distributed contributions from their
immediate associates, changes
in the organization of communities, transportation, retailing and
employment together with technological changes in the design of
software and hardware.
It can be difficult to gather direct
ethnographic evidence on this
hypothesis. However, a number of
proxies may provide some evidence.
we should expect, for example, differences between older and younger
people, not all of which can be associated with aging alone. we should
expect to find different patterns of
messaging management common
to some groups and not others, and
may be able to associate these with
risky behavior (or its absence).
The scale necessary for these
adaptations depends in part on the
nature of consciousness, a complex
ball of twine that we do not want to
delve into yet too deeply. However,
it is worth taking a casual look at
two possible models. If every task
we are doing has to be truly shared
in our consciousness, having to do
several simultaneously in the same
consciousness implies a level of
synchronous integration that will
be conservative and limitations
are going to be much more drastic.
we will end up with the situation
that if a new thing is going to be
done then something else has to go
away to make room for it. There
seems to be little room for integrating the kinds of asynchronous
activity that dominates much of the
new patterns of communication.
Tononi [33] provides evidence that
divided consciousness is more like
computer timesharing. Individuals
can do many things at the same

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