Yo, Let's KIT!

Manipulation of a Nation's Youth through Mobile Telephony

Lakmali Jayasinghe's analysis of the Mobile Phone Moguls' Romance with Sri Lanka's "Hip-fied" and "Happening" Youth;

The recent tragic death of a school-girl over the discovery of a mobile phone in her possession while at school has sparked a series of contentious debates on the dormant evils of technological devices such as the mobile telephone in the hands of youth. Yet, youth is the precise target group mobile telephone service providers focus on, which is apparent in their scintillating television adverts, glamorous billboards and extensive poster campaigns. The image of the urbane, outgoing, socialite, carefree and mobile-phone-friendly adolescent projected in mobile phone service propaganda, is meant to appeal to the vast number of impressionable youth who are still in the process of forming their identities and searching for their bearings.
Adolescence is a period of transformations and fluctuating perceptions. It is a time when very few of the "bricks" that compose an individual's life are in place.
