Over at the IVREA HubLog, Fabio Sergio is thinking about the implications for interaction design implied by the intrusive nature of many modern communications devices in a post he calls Setting the stage, prompted by developments such as the following

“In Japan, where social politeness plays a much more important role than it does in any western country, mobile phone use has given birth to a new habit dubbed “the knock-knock”, which involves sending a short text message to the person you desire to contact before actually disrupting his/her time-space continuum unannounced.This far-east custom’s evil twin is the crude but effective habit of filtering incoming calls by looking at the caller’s number first, quickly translated on new phones into a “divert all non-phonebook calls to voice mail” feature, and now spreading to text-based communication as well.Another interesting sign o’ the times is the success of personalized ring-back tones: instead of hearing a recursive, nondescript tune your callers will wait while enjoying yourmusic of choice.Finally there are videocall-enabled phones, with the need to “check-yourself in the mirror” both before making and receiving videocalls, a brief stint of time during which you can quickly use the screen to self-assess if you deem yourself presentable for the upcoming personal narrowcast…or if you’d rather press the video-mute button.”