This chapter uses the ‘mobilities' lens to explore generational differences in terms of behaviour and attitudes surrounding mobile phone use in everyday public spaces. The mobile phone is a ready accomplice to all forms of contemporary mobility from the everyday and mundane activities within a given neighbourhood through to the global travels of the ‘kinetic elite' (Graham, 2002). As a communication device it provides a source of perpetual contact with significant others that enables the ongoing maintenance of emotional connections whilst on the move, attenuating feelings of physical and virtual proximity. Urry (2007) has suggested that an underlying motive for contemporary mobilities is the deep-seated human need for physical proximity with our significant others, within what others have described as an ‘ontology of connection' (Bissell, 2013). In short, our desire to be close to others drives our need to travel
