What is “infrastructure”, it used to refer to fixed facilities such as air bases, but today it refers to any essential and widely shared human-constructed resource. When talking about infrastructure, we always think about transportation, electrical power or water supply, because they are the basic needs for our daily life. No matter electrical power or water supply, it connected human with the nature so human today can control time and space. With the development of network, mobile phone become the necessity in our life, especially in China. Mobile phone is not just a tool for communication, but a multi-tool for everyday life. People use mobile phone to pay for everything instead of card or cash. It challenged some old infrastructures such as banks. Besides, people use mobile phones to watch news and TV shows. Therefore, newspapers and magazines are dying, and the printing industry is severely threatened by high technology.
What’s behind the mobile phone is cellular network. Mobile phone receives and makes calls through cell site or transmitting tower. Cellular network is used by the mobile phone operator such as China Telecom and China Mobile. Because each cell site has different range, some transmitting towers build in cities, but others may build in the suburban areas. Receiving messages and calls are basic elements for mobile phone, but for many people, the internet connection is even more important. For example, in some suburban areas or on the plane, there’s no signal, which means no service to call or send messages, but people can connect with wifi to use internet. In China, most people use WeChat to send messages and call, because it’s free and more convenient. When we meet new people, we add them on WeChat instead of add their phone numbers. Mobile internet infrastructure not only connects the space and time, but also expend them. For example, if I only use iPhone to call or message someone, it only creates the connection between me and the person I’m calling. However, the internet gives me more choices to connect with the person. I can start a video call so I can not only hear that person’s voice, but also see him visually. I can also choose group call by speaking to multiply friends virtually. We may live in different countries and have different time zones, but the internet brings people together in the same virtual space and breaks the limitations of space and time. Just as Edwards says “infrastructures possess the power to shape human time, shaping the preconditions under which we experience time’s structure and its passage.”
Although some people may argue that technology or infrastructure changes the society, I believe that the society, people’s needs drive infrastructures to develop. In China, mobile phone develops better than computers or laptops because many people from suburban areas or low-income workers can’t afford the computer. The society drives those big companies or organizations to build more cell site, and develop more applications for mobile phone instead of for computers.
Leave a Reply