A snapshot of some of the accessories on keitais - mobile phones - in Japan.
Music by thechuckledemographic.
www.thechuckledemographic.com
Kawaiifying your phone is not restricted to high school girls in Japan, salary men, university students and obachans - grandmothers - are just as likely to accessorise their phones, although Hello Kitty straps are mostly the preserve of school girls.
Japan is the first country I noticed this fashion, or obsession, with phone straps. Occasionally some of the accessories are so bulky over the top that you would need a separate bag just to carry the phone in. iPhones are notable by their absence, I have yet to see an iPhone-owner, iPhoner, with a strap.
Perhaps kawaiifying phones won't go global, but Japan's mobile phone etiquette would be a welcome global standard. Japan has strict rules regarding the use of keitais in public. For the most part these rules are adhered to. For instance when taking trains you are constantly reminded by signs and announcements to set your phone to manner mode i.e. silent mode and making calls is prohibited. In certain parts of some carriages using your keitai at all is completely prohibited. What this means is you don't have to listen to the a fellow commuter roaring down the phone delivering the mother of all mundane messages "I am on the train." Yes we know.
There are times when the rules are broken of course, but more often than not the Japanese use their phone to communicate silently, that is, via email or cmail. In this video most people use their phones not for talking, but for email, playing games, listening to music or to browse the web.
According to the Economist Japanese mobile phone talk time has reduced from a global norm of 181 minutes in 2002 a month to 133 minutes a month in 2009. While figures for how many emails sent per month were not released the Economist speculated that it could be more than a thousand a month, or 33 a day