Life with a mobile telephone is constant living in the future. Ordinary life governed by a mobile telephone is sharing everything here and now - but not with everyone. The mobile telephone increases spontaneous contacts, but only with those whose number is to be found in its memory. If one wishes to worry, or if one is otherwise fond of dichotomies, mobile-phone culture, too, offers causes for anxiety. There are no longer very many mobile-phoneless young people in Finland.
Most young people are students.
Good luck to fathers, mothers and credit companies. The new generation's telephones and services will perhaps change the entire face of the recently born mobile-phone culture. The mobile telephone as we now know it appears to be only an intermediate stage on the road of technological development. The internet is rapidly penetrating the mobile telephone, and with it banking services, money, cameras, remote control, compass and video. At first, all we are getting are new kinds of postcards and difficult menus, expensive services, and a huge media fuss over the new economy and e-commerce.