Post by kyle on Feb 23, 2015 12:34:20 GMT -5
The first ever mobile phone was constructed in 1973 by John F. Mitchell and Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola, mobile phones have come a long way since then in the development of their technology and design. But the most drastic impact they have had is on the public who buy and use them.
The original concept of the mobile phone was for it to be a communication device in public, however we now use our mobiles for a much larger variety of services such as texting, photography and filming, games, and mainly social media and the list is ever-growing.
It’s now 2015 and the amount of time we spend on these handheld devices has gotten far out of hand. We can’t go a day without keeping our casual acquaintances on Facebook up to date with what we ate for lunch, and if we do not we are forgotten and immediately overlooked. However I am not frowning upon a specific type of group of people I am referring to all of us, myself included. I have discovered in myself that I am increasingly becoming obsessed with the handheld gadget, but unlike others I have noticed it and don’t appreciate it. Social media sites such as twitter, Instagram and Facebook have all of us under their thumb as we feel the need to join these sites and if we don’t we feel left out. At the age of 16 I regret ever joining these sites, I have grown tired of feeling forced into keeping a constant update of them. The trick they use with these sites in particular is that once you have them it’s increasingly hard to delete them as we have constructed our lives around them, every inch of gossip or information will be held within a tweet or a status and we can’t simply step away from it from it all.
When social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter were first introduced we could only fully access them through computers and not handheld devices which allowed us only to check our profiles every day or two but now computers and laptops have been replaced by our mobiles or tablets which we can keep in a constant grasp. Every message and notification we are immediately informed of, and this is where the problem starts. According to a study of 1,000 people in the UK, 66% of the population fear losing or being without their phones at any time given and 53% of UK residents develop anxiety when without their mobiles. Doctors are comparing mobile phone addiction with drug addiction, stating that we use smartphones to lift our moods much similar to someone who might use a drug to lift their spirits. Two in three people also sleep with their phones under their pillow as they can’t even bare to part with it while asleep? Unfortunately if you are within that two you could be doing your body some serious damage as mobiles let off harmful radiation waves which can have lasting effects on our heart and brain.
I don’t think it is right that we are all hiding our lives behind a small piece of metal. We are losing our self-confidence and personality as a result, I mean what ever happened to the days of calling you’re friend through the good old landline to arrange you’re day? I can’t even remember the last time I sat down for a family meal without someone having to “take a call”. For all we may slag off the Japanese for pioneering the forward sailing ship of technology, they are actually well ahead of the game in terms of respect and manners when it comes down to mobile phones in public. For example if I was about to board a bus in Japan with my eyes glued to my 5” screen reading about the weather, I would be denied access onto the bus as they strongly believe it is rude to ignore you’re neighbour with a you’re iPhone 5. Even in the train stations recorded voice messages are regularly played throughout the station reminding the public to set their devices to “manner mode”. A man was even punched in the face in Tokyo by a fellow commuter as he refused to obey the mobile phone manors while on a train, the fellow commuter stated “I warned him and he complained back at me. That really pissed me off.”
Moving back on to the British culture of mobile phones, a more recent use of the mobile has started to progressively irritate me and that is the use of mobiles while at a live show. Every two weeks or so I will travel through to Glasgow or the Capital to witness live entertainment, and 9 times out of 10 it will be in the form of music. However it has now became increasingly popular for certain people to stand at the front and film it. No not for a few minutes, the whole thing, whether it be 40 minutes or 2 hours long. There will always be a collective of people that find a good spot to stand and watch the act through their phone, why? I presume it’s so they can go home later and relish in the fact that they have recorded a really good show and that it looks and sounds great. In no way can I sympathise with or understand someone who does this? Rather than immersing themselves in the live show and living for the moment they choose to get a good spot at the front or the corner so they can film it on their phone then go home and post it to their YouTube account and make a status on Facebook about how good it was.
All in all I think that we are becoming too comfortable with our mobile phones, we are all at risk of becoming addicted to the devices as we feel lost in communication with our friends and family when we are out of contact with our IPhones for less than an hour. I believe that if we went back to the basics of the mobile phone and use it for minimalistic tasks such as calls and texts and not much else then we would think with our brains a lot more rather than let Siri do It for us.
The original concept of the mobile phone was for it to be a communication device in public, however we now use our mobiles for a much larger variety of services such as texting, photography and filming, games, and mainly social media and the list is ever-growing.
It’s now 2015 and the amount of time we spend on these handheld devices has gotten far out of hand. We can’t go a day without keeping our casual acquaintances on Facebook up to date with what we ate for lunch, and if we do not we are forgotten and immediately overlooked. However I am not frowning upon a specific type of group of people I am referring to all of us, myself included. I have discovered in myself that I am increasingly becoming obsessed with the handheld gadget, but unlike others I have noticed it and don’t appreciate it. Social media sites such as twitter, Instagram and Facebook have all of us under their thumb as we feel the need to join these sites and if we don’t we feel left out. At the age of 16 I regret ever joining these sites, I have grown tired of feeling forced into keeping a constant update of them. The trick they use with these sites in particular is that once you have them it’s increasingly hard to delete them as we have constructed our lives around them, every inch of gossip or information will be held within a tweet or a status and we can’t simply step away from it from it all.
When social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter were first introduced we could only fully access them through computers and not handheld devices which allowed us only to check our profiles every day or two but now computers and laptops have been replaced by our mobiles or tablets which we can keep in a constant grasp. Every message and notification we are immediately informed of, and this is where the problem starts. According to a study of 1,000 people in the UK, 66% of the population fear losing or being without their phones at any time given and 53% of UK residents develop anxiety when without their mobiles. Doctors are comparing mobile phone addiction with drug addiction, stating that we use smartphones to lift our moods much similar to someone who might use a drug to lift their spirits. Two in three people also sleep with their phones under their pillow as they can’t even bare to part with it while asleep? Unfortunately if you are within that two you could be doing your body some serious damage as mobiles let off harmful radiation waves which can have lasting effects on our heart and brain.
I don’t think it is right that we are all hiding our lives behind a small piece of metal. We are losing our self-confidence and personality as a result, I mean what ever happened to the days of calling you’re friend through the good old landline to arrange you’re day? I can’t even remember the last time I sat down for a family meal without someone having to “take a call”. For all we may slag off the Japanese for pioneering the forward sailing ship of technology, they are actually well ahead of the game in terms of respect and manners when it comes down to mobile phones in public. For example if I was about to board a bus in Japan with my eyes glued to my 5” screen reading about the weather, I would be denied access onto the bus as they strongly believe it is rude to ignore you’re neighbour with a you’re iPhone 5. Even in the train stations recorded voice messages are regularly played throughout the station reminding the public to set their devices to “manner mode”. A man was even punched in the face in Tokyo by a fellow commuter as he refused to obey the mobile phone manors while on a train, the fellow commuter stated “I warned him and he complained back at me. That really pissed me off.”
Moving back on to the British culture of mobile phones, a more recent use of the mobile has started to progressively irritate me and that is the use of mobiles while at a live show. Every two weeks or so I will travel through to Glasgow or the Capital to witness live entertainment, and 9 times out of 10 it will be in the form of music. However it has now became increasingly popular for certain people to stand at the front and film it. No not for a few minutes, the whole thing, whether it be 40 minutes or 2 hours long. There will always be a collective of people that find a good spot to stand and watch the act through their phone, why? I presume it’s so they can go home later and relish in the fact that they have recorded a really good show and that it looks and sounds great. In no way can I sympathise with or understand someone who does this? Rather than immersing themselves in the live show and living for the moment they choose to get a good spot at the front or the corner so they can film it on their phone then go home and post it to their YouTube account and make a status on Facebook about how good it was.
All in all I think that we are becoming too comfortable with our mobile phones, we are all at risk of becoming addicted to the devices as we feel lost in communication with our friends and family when we are out of contact with our IPhones for less than an hour. I believe that if we went back to the basics of the mobile phone and use it for minimalistic tasks such as calls and texts and not much else then we would think with our brains a lot more rather than let Siri do It for us.