The chapters in part I examined mobile communication from the perspective of national cultures. The chapters in this part examine how the mobile phone is enrolled in the detailed choreography of daily life and the communication problematics that arise when integrating mobile communication into everyday life. We see in these chapters the micro-practices and practical theories of personal technology use that must emerge for the technology to be usable. Although each chapter is drawn from a particular cultural context for understandable reasons, these chapters highlight fundamental problematics in managing perpetual contact as mobile communication is made an aspect of everyday life. The phenomena dealt with in this part, if not universal, may at least be pandemic among the industrialized countries, independently of their “East–West” orientation or other particularistic dimensions.

Drawing on Norwegian research, Richard Ling and Birgitte Yttri outline the concept of micro- and hyper-coordination. Their data come primarily from ten small-group interviews in Norway conducted during the fall of 1999. They found that micro-coordination – largely an instrumental activity – was common for two-career parents. They found that teens, in addition to instrumental uses, have adopted many expressive uses. Compared with adults, teens rely heavily on mobile phones to control and affect their social presentations of self. The confluence of these factors leads to something original that Ling and Yttri call hyper-coordination.