According to the instrumental theory of technology, mobile technologies - what McLuhan\u27s refers to as electronic prostheses - promise opportunities for greater freedom, creativity, leisure, and productivity by enhancing organic bodily functions. Correspondingly, as (Cavallaro, 2000) would argue, objects such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable physiotherapy units, laptops, and portable stereos - to name just a few - seem to impart a sense of solidity to consumers\u27 lives. Just like prostheses, they are inserted into our everyday lives, helping our inadequate bodies along in fulfilling practical tasks. Phenomenologically, these kinds of mobile technologies supposedly support the subject\u27s sense of ontological completeness and security. On the other hand the substantial theory of technology draws together less optimistic commentators. Among a host of other things, they stress the panoptic nature of new information and communication technologies (Clarke, 1994; Marx, 1999; Poster, 1995; Webster, 1995). The emphasis in these accounts is on the potential for surveillance and monitoring that these technologies place in the hands of the powerful. Mobile technologies according to this view is but the latest incarnation of capitalist (the Marxist view) or state (the libertarian view) power and control fantasies. Far from empowered and freed, the subject becomes captured and enslaved by these mobile communication devices. Phenomenologically, the networked worker and consumer subject is the disciplined and docile slave of the information matrix
