Seniors finding love but not getting married

Light article about senior romance. The hallmarks of this trend are seniors who want companionship but do not want to mess up their pensions or scare their kids about inheritances.

More seniors finding love online, but skipping remarriage | Seattle Times Newspaper

Saudi girls and technology-facilitated romance

An article about technology and romantic rituals in Saudi Arabia.

"A cellphone picture of Alia's fiancé — a 25-year-old military man named Badr — was passed around, and the girls began pestering Alia for the details of her showfa. A showfa — literally, a 'viewing' — usually occurs on the day that a Saudi girl is engaged. A girl's suitor, when he comes to ask her father for her hand in marriage, has the right to see her dressed without her abaya. In some families, he may have a supervised conversation with her. Ideally, many Saudis say, her showfa will be the only time in a girl's life that she is seen this way by a man outside her family."
....
"Later that evening, over fava bean stew, salad, and meat-filled pastries, Alia revealed that she was to be allowed to speak to her fiancé on the phone. Their first phone conversation was scheduled for the following day, she said, and she was so worried about what to say to Badr that she was compiling a list of questions..... 'Ask him what kind of cellphone he has, and what kind of car,' suggested another. 'That way you'll be able to find out how he spends his money, whether he's free with it or whether he's stingy.'"
....
"According to about 30 Saudi girls and women between ages 15 and 25, all interviewed during December, January and February, it is becoming more and more socially acceptable for young engaged women to speak to their fiancés on the phone, though more conservative families still forbid all contact between engaged couples."
....
"And certainly, practices like 'numbering' — where a group of young men in a car chase another car they believe to contain young women, and try to give the women their phone number via Bluetooth, or by holding a written number up to the window — have become a very visible part of Saudi urban life."

"A woman can't switch her phone's Bluetooth feature on in a public place without receiving a barrage of the love poems and photos of flowers and small children which many Saudi men keep stored on their phones for purposes of flirtation. And last year, Al Arabiya television reported that some young Saudis have started buying special 'electronic belts,' which use Bluetooth technology to discreetly beam the wearer's cellphone number and e-mail address at passing members of the opposite sex."
....
"'If your family found out you were talking to a man online, that's not quite as bad as talking to him on the phone,' Ms. Tukhaifi explained. 'With the phone, everyone can agree that is forbidden, because Islam forbids a stranger to hear your voice. Online he only sees your writing, so that's slightly more open to interpretation. 'One test is that if you're ashamed to tell your family something, then you know for sure it's wrong,' Ms. Tukhaifi continued. 'For a while I had Facebook friends who were boys — I didn't e-mail with them or anything, but they asked me to 'friend' them and so I did. But then I thought about my family and I took them off the list.'"

Love on Girls’ Side of the Saudi Divide - New York Times via miss elisa

Hey! I was obliquely cited on CNN.com!

Arranged marriage gets high-tech twist - CNN.com: "The rise of cell phones has made long-distance courtships easier. A small 2006 study from a University of Washington researcher found that young Indians living in Bangalore used cell phones to get to know partners introduced to them by their parents."

yeah, that's my research!

A bad romance gets worse over mobile phone

The non-Latin letters that are in some languages have much significance. In this case, a substitution of a closed Turkish i with Latin i in an SMS was deadly. Who would have thought that a misspelled text message could cause such harm?

"The surreal mistake happened because Ramazan's sent a message and Emine's cellphone didn't have an specific character from the Turkish alphabet: the letter "ı" or closed i. While "i" is available in all phones in Turkey—where this happened—the closed i apparently doesn't exist in most of the terminals in that country.

"The use of "i" resulted in an SMS with a completely twisted meaning: instead of writing the word "sıkısınca" it looked like he wrote "sikisince." Ramazan wanted to write "You change the topic every time you run out of arguments" (sounds familiar enough) but what Emine read was, "You change the topic every time they are fucking you" (sounds familiar too.)"

From an email list at work: Localization Problems: A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail

When the Ex Writes a Blog, Dirty Laundry Is Aired - New York Times

People who fight back in a divorce over the internet. Tricia Walsh Smith makes a YouTube video; others blog.

When the Ex Writes a Blog, Dirty Laundry Is Aired - New York Times

Valentine's Day news roundup

Lots of good news articles about LUV this time of the year.

Time, January 28, 2008, is devoted to the Science of Romance. Several good articles including Why We Love (biological reasons for romance), We Just Clicked (online dating), Crazy Love (being in love with someone with mental issues), and Wildly in Love (pictures of romantic animals).

The Dating Detectives -- verifying claims on Indian matrimonial sites.

Good things

A couple things came to my attention today in the mobile-society list.

First, M/C Journal just released a themed issue on mobility. Some articles caught my eye, and I look forward to reading them including Raiti's Mobile Intimacy: Theories on the Economics of Emotion with Examples from Asia, Solis' Texting Love: An Exploration of Text Messaging as a Medium for Romance in the Philippines, and Humphreys and Barker's Modernity and the Mobile Phone: Exploring Tensions about Dating and Sex in Indonesia. Several of the other articles also have catchy titles, but these are the ones that jumped out at me.

Second, an article was highlighted about the Top 10 Emerging Mobile Markets. India exhibited a lot of raw growth last year.

Mobile phones and romance

Ah, Valentine's Day. My favorite holiday research-wise because stories about romance pop up everywhere.

1) Valentine's Day wins Indian hearts

India's largest chain of card shops, Archie's, is producing more than 300 different types of Valentine's Day cards this year.

Some of them come with detachable love hearts which can then be used as mobile telephone accessories. There is also money to be made from people who do not have a sweetheart but want one. Internet dating sites have grown in popularity in India.

One of the most successful, Fropper.com has two million members and says February is the most popular month in which to join.

2) India: political, religious hardliner groups protest Valentine's Day (thanks to Jonathan for these two links)

3) and here's a potentially interesting story, except it's published in The Conservative Voice, which suggests there might be a political agenda. But it has a mobile phone angle, so I can't resist: Extremist Muslims Vs. Valentines, Except Rebels

Kuwait: "Tactics are evolving. In this oil-rich state, young Arabs buy two cell phones, and as they see the beloved driving by, they throw one of the mobiles in her car; then the telephonic romance can begin."

I don't know how to verify this tidbit, but it's such a good story.

4) and forbidden love via mobile! Romance nipped on train
This is an excellent story about two kids who become connected because of the mobile phone. The boy was randomly dialing numbers and reached her. They nurtured their romance by mobile, and then by landline, before they tried to meet in person, and were thwarted.

Laltu came to know his beloved by chance. He was dialling numbers at random from his new cellphone when she said hello. Long conversations and endless SMSes followed. The bills were long, too, and the phones were confiscated. But that only made the young lovers use landlines, instead.

In time for Valentine's Day...

The University of Washington made a press release about my research.

Mobile phones facilitate romance in modern India

And it is featured on the University of Washington home page, the second story following the one about negative employees who are like bad apples in the corporate barrel.