"Let's make friends through SMS!"

"All of you must have cell phones. Feeling upset? In a bad mood? Want to find new friends? Looking for a lover? Let's share our cell phone numbers here : )."

Translated from Indonesian from a website called smslucu.net, the invitation above posted in August has attracted more than 400 comments from people posting their cellular phone numbers in the hope of finding new friends.

There are many more websites, including the social networking websites Facebook and Friendster on the Internet, which are utilized as a meeting place for people who want to make new friends by sending text messages (SMS) using cellular phones.

In Indonesia, where cellular phones are as cheap as Rp 100,000 (US$11.10) and phone credits cost Rp 5,000 a week, cellular phones have reached deep into society. Almost everyone, from all walks of life, owns a cellular phone, from the President to the pedicab driver.

Fifteen years since GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) service entered Indonesia, the country now has approximately 180 million cellular phone subscribers, according the Cellular Phone Providers Association (ATSI). Some 30 million consumers use broadband connections.

The ubiquity of the cell phone, now with fast 3G/HDSPA technology, brings Internet access to people who do not use personal computers and has opened new ways of interaction.

Embraced by some who voluntarily make their personal cellular phone numbers available to the public and would randomly dial a number to meet new people, this technology-mediated socialization is also rejected by some who are protective of their privacy, people who are suspicious or are just annoyed by strangers wanting to befriend them.

For Luthfy, a 22-year-old university student from Kolaka, a coastal city in Southeast Sulawesi, making friends via text message was a way to learn about people from other islands.

His interaction with his new friends could be seen as modern-day pen pals. He posted his number on smslucu.net and had befriended eight people, from Sumatra and Jawa.

"I learn about how the other regions are like. They have very different dialects. I know how people in Lampung speak and how Batak people in Medan speak," he said in a telephone interview.

Sometimes he would also dial a random number. If the owner of the number texted him asking who he was, Luthfy would introduce himself and ask if the person if he would like to befriend him.

As to his motivation, he said he wanted to make new friends and widen his perspective of other regions.

"I ask them about their region, the weather. In the future, maybe I'll travel to those places," he said.

The same thing motivates Dyena Budiarti, a 23-year-old university student from Dompu, West Nusa Tenggara. She said she would text message new friends for a couple of months. Her friendships with people she meets usually only last for a couple of months, as the conversation fizzles out, she said.

Nuraini Juliastuti, co founder of the Yogyakarta-based Kunci, research center for cultural studies, said there was a new "cultural logic" being formed with the proliferation of the use of cellular phones and other technology.

As Indonesia is entering an era in which people live among technology and are flooded with information, she said that people are constantly forced to negotiate their ways in using technology.

Research on the impact of technology and media has been divided by one school that view technology as the answer to all social problems and another school that views it as a threat that can destroy society's moral ties, Nuraini said. Kunci, she said, was branching out to examine the shifting cultural logic brought by the convergence of media and technology. "One of the biggest components of this research is the cellular phone," Nuraini said. The research center is currently carrying out a two-year research project in six cities in Indonesia - Pati, Surabaya, Indramayu, Batam, Makassar and Mataram.

Commenting on how people randomly dial a number to befriend strangers, she said that people might see it as a harmless way to spend time, similar to prank calls when landlines were a novelty in big cities.

"The difference is in the technology we face now. It's more powerful, in a sense it has more facilities," she said.

Technology now, she said has become a part of people's bodies. "Technology has become the body itself. And the body responds to the technology that we use," she said.

"The ways we use it creates possibilities of friction," she said. "Actually, there is no problem with people using hand phones all the time, like when people are busy with their Blackberry every five minutes when they have free time. The problem comes when you are faced with other people, the tension starts to rise."

Jakarta resident Ary Tjakradirja, who had received random text messages, said that he was most annoyed with people who choose to reply to text messages or chat using their Blackberrys instead of giving attention to the person in front of them.

"If it's for important stuff, it does not matter. But sometimes when I meet up with people, they would text message or chat on their Blackberrys about unimportant stuff. Sometimes they just send a message to their friend saying they're eating out. And the friend would reply asking 'eating where'. And then after that the friend would ask 'is the food good'. And then it drags out," he said.

"It has changed the meaning of proximity," Ary said.

Nuning said for Kunci's preliminary findings, the people they interviewed, who made friends with people they never meet face to face, found the question of whether their relationships were real or not as irrelevant.

"In some of the informants, that question doesn't even exist," she said.

The interesting part, Nuraini said, was that through text messages and chats people can form romantic relationships.

Here, she said there was a redefininition in relationships and break-ups. "A breakup happens when they stop contacting each other," she said. Nuraini said that they still need to test this thesis through other cases and interviewees.

Nuraini said that mediated-relationships - be it friendships or romance - could only work when both parties share the same level of openness.

She said that for people who reject meeting new people via text message or chat, their privacy is something very important. Usually, she said, people from big cities, such as Jakarta were the ones who like to keep to themselves. "How someone gives meaning to what's private is the problem of modern people," she said.

Tina, a Jakartan freelance worker, said that she ignores random text messages that come to her because of the way the messages were written - abbreviations, grammatical errors, and mixture of numbers and letters to form words - she was sure that she would not relate to the person who wrote the message.

"I'd rather not waste my time," she said.

She was also concerned about safety issues. "We don't know who those people are. If we meet someone at work, we somehow know where they come from. Or if I was introduced by a friend, I wouldn't mind to respond."

Tina's concerns are valid as there have been cases of teenage rape or sexual harassment in which the victim knew the attacker through text message.

Irenius Kusumawardani, however, is one of the lucky people who met love of her life thanks to a chat room facilitated by the telecommunication provider Excelcomindo for XL users.

What started as a nocturnal the past-time to survive her insomnia, became a love story, as she met and dated her now fianc? in the chat room.

She said that she was very protective of her identity and cellular phone number. She only revealed her personal number after she met her fianc? in person.

"I don't use the chat room anymore," she said. She doesn't have trouble sleeping at night as well. "Now I can sleep easily. My fianc? sings lullabies to me before I go to sleep," she said.