-Tactics and Concepts for Highly Mobile People

Another informant receives 9 phone calls for a period of 30 minutes interview. He seems
to be on the phone all the time, having a phone in each pocket and explaining why he
doesn’t listen to music in the car, he says:
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“No, because normally I’m always on the phone.(…) My music is my phone.” -
Ibrahim
Scott says that he frequently looks at the phone and check for updates. He uses it so much
that he is almost addicted to it:
“Everyone has got a blackberry. That becomes part of your life. A crackberry some
one calls it, because it is very addictive.”
So there is a clear tendency that the mobile phone plays an important role in all the
interviewees’ lives to a degree that they become very attached to it. Rae explained that
her husband was also on the phone all the time. She says that:
“It’s connected to his head. The phone is vibrating throughout the night.”
Alfred explain that through his long career as a successful businessman he has been to
almost every country in the world, but never experienced any of the places. It was just
airports and the same business rooms all over. He explains that he has learned a lot about
cultures and negotiation techniques in the different places, but he is eager to learn more
about this and pas on his knowledge now that he has extra time to do so. He has a desire
to learn more about the different cultures and see the places, now that he is retired.
But it is not only the phone they use for bubbling. Jan explains that:
“If I fly long distance then I bring my IPod and my Bose headphones (Noise
cancelling headphones) so that I can get some peace”
Yet an example of bubbling is when Steven (the steward) and his colleagues finish a long
flight, they are all bubbling individually in the bus while being transported to the hotel, by
putting on headphones and listening to music. Most of them close their eyes too.
Bubbling can be performed both in specific places and while on the move. The
summerhouse family bubbles while in the summerhouse, where the perceived
world is rather small and isolated from the big picture.