"Emergent traits arise through interaction with the (social or physical) environment" (Hemelrijk).
Fish don't say "Let's meet at the sunken Spanish galleon at 2.30 and go around in a big shoal eating little fish and avoiding sharks". They swim along responding to what their nearest neighbours, little fish and sharks do.
Ito describes how people don't say "I'll meet you at the clock tower at 2.30" anymore.
"Now teens and twenty-somethings generally do not set a fixed time and place for a meeting. Rather, they initially agree on a general time and place (Shibuya, Saturday late afternoon), and exchange approximately 5 to 15 messages that progressively narrow in on a precise time and place, two or more points eventually converging in a coordinated dance through the urban jungle."
This means there is much more opportunty for the environment - places and other people - to alter plans. If we arranged the night before to be at the clock tower at 2.30, we've got to be there, but if I can send you a text saying "I'll be there at 3", or "why don't we meet on the library steps instead?" we're much more able to act on things we come across by chance.
One of Johnson's Five Principles for how individual decisions become group behaviour is Encourage Random Encounters. Mobile phones have opened us up to random encounters with our social and physical environment.
At the moment my environment is limited to the people I'm with, the other people who have my phone number ("We're meeting at the war memorial at 4" "OK, we'll come too") and what I come into contact with on my way to the war memorial ("I've just seen that lad you fancy buying records!" "Wait there!!").
What information could my mobile phone give me that would widen my social and physical environment? What patterns could it show me?
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