There is no use denying the fact that nowadays mobile technologies play a very important role in the life and functioning of our society. Giving a lot of undeniable advantages and freedom to move and be supported with data, these devices, however, can be taken as a threat to peoples ability to communicate and collaborate with each other, as face to face communication is turning out to be an atavism in the era of digital revolution. Taking it into account, mediated communication should be investigated.
Realizing importance of this processes Hossam Ali-Hassan, Dorit Nevo and Saggi Nevo devote their article Mobile Collaboration: Exploring the Role of the Social Capital to the detailed investigation of this issue. The reason of this exploration is the authors suggestion about the negative influence of these technologies on the workers ability to collaborate directly. The authors main idea is to show and investigate the influence of mobile technologies on the life and social activity of workers, involved in mobile collaboration. The main notions which the authors investigate and give their own definition are nomadicity, social mobility and social capital.
The authors give detailed and clear definition of each of these four terms, underlining their importance for the issue. The authors also point out strong mutual dependence of these factors and necessity of the complex analysis of their cooperation. The links between social mobility and social capital are suggested. Moreover, the authors outline six different propositions, analyzing these relations and trying to predict how decrease or increase of social mobility can influence a workers social capital. Having proposed the ”basic model linking social mobility to social capital and, ultimately, to collaboration” [1, p. 17], the authors suggest some further ways of extending this model and guarantying its further development.
Having read the article, it is possible to admit its great importance for understanding of the present state of development of mobile technologies and their influence on social capital. The authors interpretation of the term nomadicity as the ability to provide a set of computing capabilities for a person in a convenient way [1] seems very clear and understandable for a common reader. Being rather new, this term, however, is now gaining popularity, that is why its understanding is important for further development of knowledge in this field.
The article explains perfectly influence of this term on a workers social capital. The work helps to get understanding of the issue of social capital and its peculiarities. The authors cogitations about the role and structure of social capital help to analyze and come to realization of the most important points of the processes which occur in modern society under the influence of development of mobile technologies. Very important part of the article, which helps to be more involved in the issue, is the authors six propositions which lead to deeper understanding of relations between social capital and social mobility. Moreover, the authors analysis of their own ideas in the end of the work helps to renew the data obtained while reading the article and make own conclusions concerning this issue.
Having read and analyzed the article, it is possible to say that it helps to create a clear image of the processes which occur in our society under the influence of digital revolution. The authors interpretation of the main terms helps to understand this issue better.
References
[1] A. Hossam, et al., “Mobile Collaboration: Exploring the Role of Social Capital” The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 9-24, May 2010.