Bath and Phone Together : Love for Phones in Japan

Quick: connect anime, high-tech gizmos, green tea and luxurious public baths. Well the anime part was a dead giveaway. The Japanese, we hear, are compulsive gadget freaks and have a need to keep changing their mobile phones with a little less frequency than they change clothes. But it turns out that even in that short period of time they are incredibly attached to their phones. So attached that they can’t pry those phones off even when they have to go bathing!

This habit has been helped by the fact that the Japanese don’t take showers like the rest of us. No sir, their idea of bathing is a huge hall with a tub the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Hundreds maybe would congregate together and enjoy a refreshing (?) dip in the waters while catching up with politics. At least that’s what used to happen during the good old days. In the mobile phone age everyone and their cousin are seen waist downwards in water and a mobile phone stuck to their ears. Statisticians, after a glance at their charts and graphs tell u that young people do most of the talking. They also helpfully inform us that writing emails and listening to music are also hot favorites.

In case you are wondering what happens when water enters the mobile phones, hold your horses. Japanese manufacturers had already foreseen this and sell their phones as bath-safe, presumably for an extra thousand yen.