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Communicating through "Print Clubs" and Pagers

Tomohiro Kawamura
    Keio University
    Graduate School of Media and Governance (MAG)
Child Research Net  [This was written in 1997.]

	Print Club is enormously popular among girls in junior and senior high school. These machines were first marketed at the end of 1995. In the past year alone, the number nationwide has reached ten thousand. In one day, they take and print about one million photographs. How are children today using this new media?

	It's similar to a machine that takes instant ID photographs. Instead, the photos come out as a sheet of 16 stickers. It's possible to choose patterns called frames and special techniques called hidden frames. On weekends, there's sometimes a three-hour wait to use one with a popular Japanese character. One sheet costs 300 yen and takes an average of four minutes. Recently, some Print Club machines make name cards and stamps. At first, Print Clubs were located in video arcades, but now they are found all over the city. There are even Print Clubs in train stations.

Interview with junior high school students:	Q.	How many sheets do you have?
	A.	About 1100
	Q.	You took them in one year?
	A.	Yes.
	Q.	Is this a book just for Print Club stickers?
	A.	No, it has a calendar, too.
	Q.	Do you take photos often
	A.	Yes.
	Q.	Do you exchange them with friends?
	A.	Not just with friends.
	Q.	You exchange them with people you don't know?
	A.	Well, friends of friends.
Sheets and sheets of Print Club stickers are put in memo books. How do junior and senior high school students use stickers to make new friends? We conducted questionnaires and group interviews to find out.
Interview with junior high school students:	Q.	How many Print Club stickers do you have?
	A.	About 180.
	A.	A little over 100.
	A.	I have 270.My younger sister has about 600.
	Q.	Do you have more at home?
	A.	Only about 20.
	Q.	How can you look at them all if you have so many?
	A.	I can't. And, they're heavy, too
	A.	Actually, my Print Club book is the heaviest thing in my bag.
	A.	But, I always carry it with me.
	A.	I take photos whenever I find a Print Club around. They're everywhere now.
	A.	I'll go out of my way if a certain Print Club takes cute pictures. But, usually, I do it whenever I happen to see to one.
	A.	It's more than just a fad. It's a different type of photography.We do it to remember certain events, like when we meet people or make new friends. And then we reminisce about it later. It makes good memories.

Print Club is a new media and means of communication and its use is expanding in new ways.
There are bulletin boards using Print Clubs and young people send various messages.
There are special magazines for Print Club photos.
It's a way to find friends and pager pals, too.