DoCoMo Gets To Educate The Youth Of Japan

from the seems-like-a-conflict dept

Mon, Apr 25th 2005 1:37pm — Mike Masnick

Why is it that private companies with clear marketing agendas get to educate our youth in schools? We've already talked about the sketchy program that allows the MPAA to go into US schools and "educate" kids about intellectual property law from a fairly one-sided and biased position. We've also written about how AT&T Wireless (now Cingular) puts on "educational" programs for kids about how mobile phones work while (oh yeah) also showing off slick new AT&T Wireless branded mobile phones. It appears that folks in Japan liked this approach, and NTT DoCoMo now gets to go into schools in Japan and teach kids "the history and manners of mobile phones." Certainly seems like a presentation on the "history and manners" of the mobile phone can come very close to the line of a marketing opportunity directed at the target demographic so many mobile phone companies seem to be after these days. Kids are getting marketed to left and right. Shouldn't stuff that comes under the banner of education at least have a neutral instructor? It might be fine if someone else explained the other side, and the students were taught some critical thinking exercises to figure out what the biases were and how to be skeptical of the information they're given -- but that doesn't appear to be what's happening at all.

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dorpus, 25 Apr 2005 @ 2:12pm

Funny
Until the USA put pressure on Japan to open up their cell phone market in 1994, the NTT state-owned monopoly used to require thousands of dollars a month if you wanted to own a cell phone. The argument was that "only Americans need cell phones", that, that this is Asia, therefore it is a "face to face culture". Businessmen, college professors, all used to argue that the internet and cell phones are just stupid American tricks, and not necessary.

In today's train accident, one of the survivors trapped inside the train used his cell phone to describe people fading away, stacked on top of each other like the inside of a crushed strawberry cake box. The rescuers couldn't use cutting equipment because a car in the parking lot was on the roof of the train and leaking gasoline. Most people were alive at first, but by the time the rescuers opened up the second train car, most of them were dead. They're still working on the first train car, which is basically packed full of red jello.

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