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Twiddling thumbs
An interview with Phil Gosset, Head of Future Studies R&D at Vodafone
By Clare Richards |
A recent poll on BBC Online showed that 41% of respondents would still use their mobile phone even if it were proven to cause cancer. Clearly, we perceive mobile phones to be an essential part of modern life, whatever the cost. Children are notoriously enthusiastic users: even their thumbs have been shown to be more dextrous as a result of their frequent texting. But despite their popularity with young people, mobile phones are firmly excluded from UK classrooms.
The Stewart Report of 2000 is the biggest brake on the development of educational applications for the mobile phone. Because of unproven but possible health risks, the report advises that children should only make emergency calls and that calls should be kept short. Mobile phone companies are also banned from marketing their products to children. The current situation, where most parents want their children to carry a mobile phone for safety, but schools ban their use, is seen as paradoxical by some commentators who believe that we could be ignoring a vital educational resource. On the other hand many teachers see mobile phones as an unwelcome distraction. It is not surprising therefore that there is hardly any research being done in schools.
Phil Gosset, Head of Future Studies, R&D at Vodafone explains their position: "We do not actively promote mobile phone use amongst children under the age of 16 as we have committed to observing the recommendations of the Stewart Report in the UK. However we recognise that young people do have mobile phones and are therefore looking into ways with which to help educate them on their responsible use," he explains.
"As a communication device that every child carries, it clearly has huge potential," he says, and offers some pointers to the possible future for mobiles in schools: "Vodafone supports the judicial use of mobile phones as an educational tool. It is obviously not ideal for delivering lessons - the screen size is a definite handicap. However, it is useful for discussing homework and in the future could be used for scheduling and delivering reminders. I recently saw a mobile phone being used as a way of remotely assessing comprehension, which is interesting, although it is clearly still early days," he says. Phil also expects to see children making creative use of picture phones. "Having the time, space and incentive to create small works of art using the camera phone, and having a distribution channel at hand and an understanding of how it was done could be very interesting," he says.
In terms of recent mobile technology, Phil is most excited by short-range blue-tooth messaging. He is also an avid fan of texting and has no time for the view that it is an impoverished form of communication: "Having a limited channel doesn't impair communication," he says. "Does 'I luv u' mean anything less than 'I love you'? Would Brief Encounter be a better film in colour?" he asks.
So does he think that the restrictions on marketing mobiles to children will always be an issue? "The marketing of all products and services to children is subject to Government and public scrutiny. I don't feel that this will change and nor do I believe that it should. However, restrictions and legislation are under constant review by Government. In the meantime, mobile operators have started to implement access controls and Codes of Practice to ensure that parents have some control over the products and services accessed by their children," he says.
The Stewart Report called for more research into the safety of mobile phones. As a result, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme was set up in 2001 with a budget of £7.4 million. Current research projects include the effects of radiowaves on blood pressure and cognitive functions, and looking at the health of people who have used mobiles since the 1980s. If these projects deliver conclusive evidence of their safety in the next few years, the poor reception for mobile phones in education may improve. Outside the world of education mobile phone companies are finding increasingly innovative ways to integrate mobile usage into our daily lives. Muslims in the United Arab Emirates can receive the call to prayer via their phone and the Vatican is offering a text message a day from the Pope, taken from his speeches.
BBC Worldwide have recently gone out on a limb as one of the first companies to develop an educational use for mobile phones, though not a service aimed at children. They are offering English language tuition via mobile in China, the biggest mobile market in the world. Users receive an English phrase a day, with its Chinese translation, and are then directed to a website for further learning. Perhaps this is a sign of the way things will develop - mobiles used as a spark and a prompt rather than as a learning medium themselves. We, along with the mobile phone companies, shall have to twiddle our thumbs while we wait and see.
Links
www.vodafone-rnd.com
Vodafone Group's Research and Development site
www.iegmp.org.uk/report/text.htm#
Read the full report of Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones - the Stewart Report
www.mthr.org.uk
Take part in a study or find out more about the research projects looking into the safety of mobile phones at the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme
www.ultralab.ac.uk
Find out more about eViva: one of the few research projects using mobile phones in schools in the UK - for more information see 'Playtime anytime: games and multimedia on mobile phones', by Ben Williamson
July 2004
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