Yesterday, at the bicycle shop where I volunteer, I met a man named Herbert. Our interaction involved a mechanism typical to modern communication: Looking together at the screen of a smartphone. Herbert’s impulse to pull out his smartphone, and his acumen in using it, interested me as a media ethnographer.
Field Notes: Herbert’s Bikes
A low-income Vietnam vet revels in the good life, projected through a smartphone screen.
Will Marler, PhD 