Let me address your observation.

First, are you different? Yes, in the grand scheme of things, of course you are different. We get caught by the hype of trends, that we lose sight that individuals have specific preferences and motivations. The maxim that you can make guesses about your audience, but never really know your audience is important to keep in mind.

So, the reality is plenty of people see the camera phone as a extra thing on their phone that they will never use. They are driven by core functionality of the phone. I do not want to make sweeping generalizations (read paragraph one again) but this is certainly true in the US, where our perception of the cell phone is still primarily bound as a replacement for the phone. It is not seen as a convergence device.

Many people do feel compelled to communicate. Immediacy may further fuel this, were ubiquitous access to wireless services make it a casual act to share content with the world.

Certainly, it is the whole package -- taking a picture, being able to send it immediately to others, to be able to put it in an album, without having to touch a personal computer. This is unfamiliar territory for people over a certain age, it may even feel a little foreign. The target is to not create visual statements as much as it is to capture a moment and. share. It is the same magic that made poloroid such an amazing technology.

There is the issue of public and private space. Some people feel uncomfortable sharing a visual record of their life with the world, others very much subscribe to Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, realized in the gridded matrix of YouTube and Flickr. Certainly, we live in an intriguing time where those boundaries are being redefined, and what the expectation of privacy really means.

My guess is that for yourself, the act of taking a photograph is an active decision: I will get my camera and take it with me, because there will things and events that I will document. For cameraphone users, this intent has vanished; they want to share their life, their view with the world, for this in turn allows them to share a piece of themselves with others, in a relatively safe way.

The reason I took time to write to you is that your question is apt, as I am a graduate student in Design, where my research is very much going to be focused on how Visual Literacy (and our attitudes towards it) is impacted by commonplace digital media capture devices. I have an old phone with a cruddy camera, and hope to get a better one soon.

A exercise I would suggest is that next time your go on vacation or a brief trip, leave the camera at home, and strictly use a phone as a documentation device. I think you will have a better handle on the answer that is correct for you after this experience, but may also give you some insight into those that are compelled to share their lives.

--hal

Thanks Hal for you well-thought response!

To touch one point in your comment directly. About public and private space.
I have noticed on many occasions that my private space covers much more ground that the private space of other people. I see this in discussions, as well as in how widely (read: very few people) I distribute a chain-email-letter jokes I received from many directions.

On the other hand, I enjoy wathing pictures/photos by other people, so I see the value in taking the instant photo and sharing it to your circle of friends/colleagues/acquintances. I am just too lazy to act on that inpulse and also I enjoy seeing the event though my eyes, not though the lense of the camera.

Good luck in you graduate studies!

Hartti