Hyperlink Report

In Gerard Goggin's book, "Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life," published in 2006, Goggin delves into a range of topics that cover how cell phones intersect with a person's life in the increasingly digital world. In chapter five of the book, Goggin prefaces the discussion of how cell phones have affected the disabled by conveying that they are a significant portion of the population and breaks down his four points of focus and analysis: "contemporary social, political, and cultural approaches to understanding disability..., the incompatibility of second generation digital cell phones for hearing-aid users and Deaf people using tele-typerwriters..., exploring deaf people's use of short text messages..., contrast deafness and cell phones with blind people's non-use and use of SMS." In this review, we will analyze Goggin's ability to both portray the approaches and innovations that he mentions and how these observations help to serve his conclusion about cell phones, their consumption, and the disabled. In his first segment, "Approaching disability and the cell phone," Goggin touches on the various scholarly perspectives on disability among his own social model that includes a wider variety of impairments to have a greater understanding of the importance of technology and cell phones in the social interactions for disabled individuals. This first section of the article serves as a good introduction for the more thorough analysis of why cell phones now have such an important role in these social relations. In the next portion of chapter five, Goggin overviews the historic advancements of cell phones and how they have both positively and negatively affected the disabled and specifically deaf people, although the disabled were generally not thought of in why these progressions were being made. This transitions well into "Seeing telephony:deaf people and text messaging," which points out the effect that the ability to SMS, or short text message, has had among deaf people, as even though most will opt for texting, they have expressed fears that it will dilute and begin to deteriorate certain social customs that come as a result of face to face interactions. Ultimately, among the deaf community, Goggin does see texting as a mostly positive outlet, as given the opportunity most will opt for it. In a natural progression, Goggin then shifts his focus to cell phone design and how it has largely ignored the blind community. However, he does mention the advancements in the field that have catered to the blind with aural cameras that create soundscapes of images in order for a blind person to have an understanding of the picture. In the last segment of chapter 5, "Cell phones and next-generation disability," Goggin summarizes through his evidence that there is still a small discourse of disability among technology and that there is an immense amount of work to be done to greater assist the inclusion of the disabled in technological advancements. Obviously with Goggin's book being published in 2006, we have see the significantly greater focus on technological innovations that help to play a role in a disabled person's life that are not simply an adverse effect of an invention that was thought to be for a certain type of employee, etc. and this seems to be a continually growing and evolving fields as we have seen throughout the last couple of years. By saying that, I think Goggin's book displays the ever increasing involvement of cell phones and technology in any person's day to day life and was well ahead of his time in helping to open the discourse about how it affects the disabled and how they need to be thought about when making these advancements.