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80 percent of teens in Scandinavia have mobile phones

GOTHENBURG, Sweden (CNN) -- For teen-agers in Stockholm, having a mobile is a way of life. As the first generation that has always had the mobile, they use it to talk and send text message all day.

"That's how we find out what's going on ... what's going to happen this weekend," says one student. "I get about five messages a day and I send as many."

With 80 percent of teen-agers in Scandinavia now having a phone, it's no longer a status symbol. But the mobile has created new pressures of its own. For instance, what if no one calls or sends you a message?

"If you don't get any messages, you feel quite sad, like no one cares about you," one teen says.

Teens in Scandinavia certainly know how to use their mobile phones to keep in contact. But what's the quality of the communication? Regis Cabral says that all too often, talking on the phone can be a substitute for real communication.

"The technologies can build barriers that can actually be walls. They can be instruments to separate people," says Cabral of Umea University's Uminova business development center in Umea, Sweden. "They actually hide behind the telephone, they hide behind the computer, they stay behind walls, they don't go out. They don't interact with other people.

"Many years ago people talked about the millions of people that live in big cities like New York and they are alone. They have mobile phones, but when they die, nobody notices they are gone."

Alexandra Weilenman of the Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg disagrees that the mobile causes problems. She has spent hours studying the way teen-agers use their phones, watching the way it has changed their behaviour.

She says the phone has taken on a new dynamic as a part of the group. Teen-agers use the mobile in ways that are different from adults.

"I was surprised to see that the phone is not a private tool. It's something you share. That was a big surprise for me," says Weilenman. "I didn't realize that people would answer someone else's phone, or pass the phone around. And when someone calls, they are staying in the ... group and not (going) away."

At the moment the phone is great fun. It's the toy of the decade. The challenge going ahead: being alone with your phone and making the most of this interactive world.

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