Jan Chipchase, the well-known Nokia anthropologist, has just published a blog post, an essay, and a paper (pdf, 344 kb, 8 pages) that explores where people carry their mobile phones and why. The research is based on data from a series of Nokia street surveys conducted between 2003 and 2006.

The first study in this series, conducted in Helsinki during the summer of 2003, was designed to understand the extent to which people noticed incoming communication. Since then the study has evolved to encompass the carrying location of other objects, collect a visual snapshot of mobile phones and their ‘owner’s’ and has since been run in eleven countries across four continents.