CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES

Reading today the The Economist I found lots of interesting information about the ways we use mobile phones around the world. For instance:

The words used for those small and convenient machines reflect the priorities of a society. The American call them cellulars (emphasis on the technological aspect), the English mobiles, as in Portugal, Spain, etc (usually societies that once had an empire and were used to move around). The Germans, pratical as always call them Handy and the Chinese sho ji (hand machine).

Some talk, some text. The Japanese consider it rude to have a conversation that everybody can hear text a lot (as Indonesians, maybe for different reasons).
The Spanish talk a lot and don't activate voice mail that much. Americans and Puerto Ricans talk more than they text.
Whwre ant the way people use their mobiles also tells a lot about thwe way they see the town a a collective space. parisians tend to talk or text on pavements even in the street, Londoners prefer to gather at the entrances of tube stations.
In Portugal, as everybody who live here well knows, we like to share our private lives with lots of people so we tend to shout during conversations in buses, restaurants, cafés, everywhere (Brasilians are great at that too).
Coverage is also important too. For instance the Finns choose operators that work in tunnels (for good reasons, specially in Winter).
You can read all this and much more at:
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15172850&source=features_box_main