Nokia and the University of Cambridge are showing off a new stretchable and flexible mobile device of the future called Morph.

The new concept phone is part of an online display presented in conjunction with the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition underway through May 12 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The device, which is made using nanotechnology, is intended to demonstrate how cell phones in the future could be stretched and bent into different shapes, allowing users to “morph” their devices into whatever shape they want. Want to wear your cell phone as a bracelet? No problem, just bend it around your wrist.

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Nokia has been conducting street surveys between 2003 and 2006 on where people carry their mobile phones and why. Over the period more than 1500 people from over 10 cities have been interviewed. The main purpose of the survey was to find out the relationship between missing calls and where the phone is carried. The survey has revealed some interesting results-

• Most men carry their mobile phone in their trouser pockets(mostly right pocket) for easy reach with their right hand.
• Most women (60%) carried their mobile phone in a bag usually a hand bag.
• 30% of pocket carriers and 50% of bag carriers sometimes or always miss incoming mobile phone communication either because they don’t notice a call or because they can’t retrieve the phone in time from their hand bag.

• The position where people carried their phone were driven by a need to balance the ease of carrying and interaction versus a desire to protect it from damage, loss and theft. Other factors that influenced the carrying position include:a lack of alternatives (particularly for pocketless women’s clothes), health concerns, a reflection of local carrying styles and tastes, large phone sizes i.e. it was not suitable for the preferred carrying location and not wanting the phone’s presence to interfere with current
  activity.
• In case of men, use of belt pouches becomes more popular with increasing age probably reflecting a preference for convenience over elegance. An increase in waist size would also explain belt pouches for males making pockets a less feasible destination.
  
• The use of protective covers among users varied from 3%-32% and is driven by a desire to prolong the life of the device by protecting from dust and scratches, and particularly for more price conscious consumers - to protect resale value.
• Phone strap usage ranges from the purely functional to highly decorated and whilst the most extreme examples can be found amongst younger females, they are also widely used by males. A lesser strategy adopted by females is to attach objects with unique textures, which then make it easier to locate the phone unsighted in the handbag.

Here are my 2 cents:
I usually carry my mobile on my shirt pocket. I shift to my trouser pockets only on days when my shirt doesn’t have a pocket (most probably a T-shirt). While the survey shows that most men carry their mobile in their trouser pockets, my observation has been that most people around me carry it in their shirt pockets.

What surprises me is that over a 4 year period, only 1549 persons have been included in the survey.

How about leaving a comment about where you carry your mobile?

For more details on the survey click here.