"The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas -- and friends will converse with each other without leaving home."

This was the grand prediction of Alexander Graham Bell, written to his father, shortly after he invented the telephone in 1876. Bell accurately saw long-distance communication becoming a common utility -- like water or gas, available to virtually everyone. But could he have seen how much communication would change? Could he have imagined his invention -- a large wooden box with a funnel, a battery and a cup of acid -- becoming a mobile telephone, compact enough to fit into a pocket, yet powerful enough to transmit sound, images and data?

In modern-day Japan, wireless communication is ubiquitous. Everywhere, people of all ages -- from salarymen to elementary school children -- are talking or mailing on their keitai (cell phones). According to the Telecommunications Carriers Association, which takes annual surveys of the number of cell-phone users, there was a ninefold increase from January 1996 to October 2002 -- a swell from roughly 8 million users to 78 million. If you exclude newborns and the elderly, it would seem that virtually everyone has one.

Mobility changes everything. A call for help or a readjustment of plans is only a thumb-tap away. A student running late for class can make a call to a confederate to make sure that his attendance card is handed in. A wife stuck in a meeting can message her husband and tell him to pick up the kids from day-care. A bored train commuter can exchange messages with friends or browse the Net.

A Pandora's box of concerns

But, as with all technology, convenience comes at a price and accessibility goes both ways. While a teenager might see a keitai as freedom, a salaryman with a demanding boss might see it as a technological ball-and-chain. Since users are always connected to the network, they're always "available." And, of course, as anyone knows, an incoming call, signaled by a loud chirp or melodic ring-tone, can kill a conversation or disrupt a performance.

Aside from general nuisances, the medium of mobile communication has also opened a Pandora's box of social concerns. Critics say that it has produced digitally dependent keitai addicts, that it has spawned kids who can only communicate via cutesy pictograms and substanceless shorthand, and so on.

"It is very easy to criticize this keitai culture," says Akira Fujitake, 69, a professor of sociology at Gakushuin University. "People think that relationships in general have become weaker because they interact through keitai instead of actually meeting."

For more than 30 years, Fujitake has been researching how telephones affect our way of communication. He began to study keitai in the '90s, when the keitai boom took off, especially among young people.

"Young people have a keitai communication network," says Fujitake. "That is their way of being connected with others. If they don't receive a call or an e-mail, they become anxious."

However, one of the reasons people tend to criticize this culture, Fujitake points out, is because it is new and they only compare it with the past, rather than accepting the fact that our ways of communication are evolving.

"Going to see someone in person used to be the only way to interact with others, but now, thanks to keitai, it can be done more easily," says Fujitake. "But, it is also easy to conceal your true identity through keitai, so therefore, it is understandable that people tend to criticize relationships based on keitai interaction, thinking that they are virtual."

For university student Masaru Takeda, the relationship he developed via keitai is very real. He met his girlfriend not through friends, but through a deaikei saito (online personal ad site). They corresponded for two months and they've been a couple for two years now.

Deaikei sites -- basically matchmaking sites -- have been popular since the early days of mobile communication. Men sign up online and list certain personal information, including a self-introduction; women can then search through categories such as age, location or occupation to find a match.

For about a year, Takeda (not his real name) spent his free time logging on to a couple of these deaikei sites and communicating with prospective girlfriends.

"I corresponded with about 20 girls before I met my girlfriend," says Takeda. "It was a lot of fun communicating with people I didn't know."

For Takeda, who is in a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend (she lives in Aichi Prefecture), his keitai is especially important.

"My monthly phone bill is about 40,000 yen, which means that I don't have much money left from my part-time job," says Takeda. "But there's not much I can do. Because we cannot see each other that often, our relationship is based on communication through keitai and keitai mail."

Keitai-village perils

While people like Takeda have benefited from this new form of communication, these sorts of sites have also recently been linked to various crimes, including extortion, robbery, rape and murder. Data for 2001 from the National Police Agency show that there were 888 deaikei-site-related cases, nearly an eightfold increase from the previous year.

"With so many users, it is no surprise that many people try to misuse these deaikei sites for such purposes as enjo kosai (compensated dating)," says Yuichi Washida, the 34-year-old research director at Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living. "And, it's also not surprising that the use of such sites has spread to the younger generation since few enforce their age restrictions."

It is unfortunate for the deaikei-site industry that this type of abuse has occurred. But then again, like terekura clubs (telephone dating services), at many deaikei sites, while men pay a fee to post their ads, women get in for free. What did they expect?

Imahima, now a mobile, location-specific instant messaging service, used to be a site to meet people with common interests.

"When we started the services, we were in the early stages of i-mode and few people had [keitai]," says Neeraj Jhanji, chief executive officer of Imahima Inc. "So, it was important to create an open service so that you could interact with other i-mode users."

Of course, the number of people accessing the Internet from keitai has since mushroomed in proportion to the number of keitai users, reaching over 60 million in October 2002, according to the TCA data. Much like the early online communities of the Internet, as these keitei villages grew, so did the number of cases of misuse.

Aware of the potential for such abuse, Imahima rethought the nature of their system.

"We realized that it would take some time to find powerful methods for community management," says Jhanji. "So, [we] decided to move to the closed community in the meantime where you interact with people you know."

With this new policy, Imahima became a safe community, but a lot smaller in size. After extensive planning, Jhanji has finally developed a new service, the Habbo Hotel. The service, which will be launched this month, gives users the option of communicating only with their current friends, or with new people as well.

"We focus on this because social communication is the basic human need," says Imahima director Ray Tsuchiyama. "Through our service, people can overcome the loneliness that they feel, not being able to meet up with friends who are too far away or too busy."

Low-priced attractions

When it comes to Internet usage from desktop computers, Japan is still lagging behind much of the world. Last year, it was ranked 16th, according to data compiled by the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry. When it comes to accessing the Net via keitai, however, the ministry figures show Japan is firmly on top, outpacing the sixth-ranked United States by a factor of 10.

"This is because cell phones are a lot more expensive outside of Japan," says Hakuhodo's Washida. "By lowering prices, manufacturers have managed to attract young people who can now experience the thrill of communicating with their peers 24 hours a day -- and without their parents' knowledge."

This is precisely what scares many parents and educators. Many high schools do not allow students to carry keitai on campus unless given special permission by the school.

"Although we do not allow keitai, it is nearly impossible to enforce this," says a teacher at a private high school in Tokyo. "It's like playing a game of cat-and-mouse. Too many students own them."

Sociologist Misa Matsuda stresses that it is misguided for authorities to ban cell-phone use at junior high and high schools while use of the Internet is being promoted at many elementary schools.

"Children, especially junior high- and high-school students, use keitai a lot more than they use the Internet," says Matsuda. "Schools need to acknowledge that their students are using keitai and point out the risks, instead of looking the other way."

As young adults, especially teens, are trying to establish their identity, Matsuda does not find it surprising that keitai has spread like wildfire among youth.

"It is a phase that everyone goes through," Matsuda says. "These young people are learning about their position in relationships by communicating through their keitai."

Surely anyone can remember the thrill of covertly passing notes during class. Not much has changed. The only difference is that people now use keitai messages instead of paper.

"People often forget the past," Matsuda says. "In the old days, women hardly ever spoke to their husbands. But now, couples communicate freely with each other. Relationships aren't weakening. In fact, I think it is quite the opposite."