Here’s the second post of three on this topic.  Being connected is not a new concept to any of us but the emphasis on being connected to be "in the loop" was interesting to hear and how this desire for constant connection is part of daily life.

If you do not have a mobile phone, you are disconnected and out of touch.  And we are not talking about the latest PDA or Blackberry but about a standard keypad flip-type phone.  The former were viewed as more for business people and generally the older set.  This group could get it all done by using T9 predictive texting language. This is consistent with how this group communicates at this point.  They are not sharing presentations and spreadsheets so the notion of having a full function keyboard for communicating is not top of mind.  Browsing the web via a mobile device did not come up either through my lack of direct questioning about it or the absence of this type of use.

There are very few, if any, places the phone doesn’t go and several could even text without looking at the keypad – quite a skill.  On the topic of email, there was consensus that they could not live without it but that it had a very defined, more formal role like communication outside of their closest personal network (professors, supervisors, etc.). 

Although constantly connected, this connection is on their terms versus face-to-face or even voice-to-voice with many opting to text versus talk.