Cell Phone Companies Are Changing Friendships

Most cell phone carriers now have networks that allow for free calls to anyone using the same carrier. These networks are a great for the cell phone companies to keep current customers and have these customers encourage their friends to join into their network. That helps in sales and retention. The only problem is that a person's personal friendships are being based on cell phone networks and this is having unintended consequences.

Imagine yourself as a person with a limited budget. Your account has 400 peak time minutes and you don't get any unlimited calls until around 9:00 PM. Therefore, who you call and text message during the day will be defined by who you can call for free. These are the people within your network because you don't have to burn any minutes to stay in touch with them.

Imagine that half of your friends are outside your network. There is a good chance that half of your friends will receive fewer phone calls than the other half. They are simply more expensive to contact and due to economics they won't be contacted as much. This is leaving some people out of each other's social circle. There is definitely an "in crowd" and an "out crowd".

According to Rich Ling, a sociologist at Telenor's communication research institute in Norway, cell phones blur the lines of when a conversation starts and when it finishes. Mr. Ling states, "Young people are not just talking for two hours, but they are continually connecting through the day." The conversations between young people and cell phones are always progressing with multiple messages.

In other words it isn't just one message that is being sent it is multiple messages being sent throughout the day. Therefore, the conversation is continually roving, growing and progressing over longer periods. There is not one initial point of contact and then a definite end. The lines of start and finish become blurred and this helps younger people feel connected to each other.

The problem is that those outside the network can't engage in this ongoing conversation because it costs too much. Therefore they are being excommunicated from their friends. The only time their non-network friends are being contact is just before social events and on the rare occasion someone calls after 9:00 P.M.

Cell phone carriers have not intended to create such ill side effects from their networks. They are just trying to increase business. However, all of the country's largest carriers such as Sprint, Verizon and AT&T utilize such networks which mean that almost all of the cell phone users are being split. The business decisions are having profound effects on how we do business. We as a society have to decide if we are going to let them.