News Regarding the Center
In the Cellphone Zone, Cabbies and Passengers Drive Each Other Crazy
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Washington Post
April 13, 2008
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James Katz studies why this might be so. Katz is the director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. Founded in 2004, CMCS researches the social and psychological ramifications of the cellphone explosion.
"It used to be that when people came to a new town they would use the cabdriver to learn what was what, to get a cracker-barrel philosophy of
the town," Katz says. Cabbies acted as information pollinators, steering people away from the Hard Rock Cafe and toward the unknown holes in the
wall. "It's been part of our cultural tradition and initiation, and it's disappearing."
Disappearing Americana, mobile cultural exchanges . . . Why must we wax nostalgic about everything, including those miserable crosstown jaunts in which the driver would expound on everything from the Bush family to his bunions? And for drivers -- why talk to a stranger when you can talk to your spouse, or sell a used car or two?
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