Discussion Questions: Solidairty Achieved?

Ling has been outlining concepts and ideas that have been flowing between Goffman, Durkheim and Collins, in an effort to see how they operate in our Mobile Tech World.
Goffman emphasizes the affect of the individual upon the situation in front of him. His co-presence needed to create the identity kits of their being. Objects/tech of use in the interactions of interactions becomes less important, and the individual becomes symbolically central to the generation of everyday rituals.
Durkhiem states that the ritual event creates positions for the individuals involved. With specific totems that are important to the ritual, participants are moved from their normal lives to a special place. Solidarity thus becomes achieved through social interactions and the creation of significant totemic symbols.
Co-presence in these ideals is thus of the most importance. A true everyday ritual creates more significant social gains (such as friendship) through totems, identity kits, ritual conversation, compared to telephone communication. The telephone in many cases becomes a backstage mediator of social exchange.
Collins combines some of these ideals and centers on the moment of focus for participants in a social ritual event. Feelings that participants create during a ritual interaction supersedes the event forwards, turning each participant into a member of that event, becoming part of a whole. Collins also looks at the need for the participants in the event to make effort to “walk the line”, keeping a common duty to make sure all rituals are carried out so everyone feels good. The failure to keep the intensity and order of the ritual can thus social move participants out of a group, moving them off a focused solidarity. Co-presence is thus definitively important.
By looking at the views these researchers took and their reasons for doing so, do you think that our mobile phones today with applications and various other technologies supersedes the comments made by these researchers? Do mobile phones now have ritual functions that create strong ritual situations? Our author cites the way mobile phones can help maintain an event through mitigated situations by texting a conversation or reminding a friend about an appointment, filling a chink in the rituals armor. And do you think that mobile phones create ritual failure?