Social Construction of Technology: Cell Phone Development

1276 Words3 Pages

The Social Construction of Technology (or SCOT) is a new research tradition rooted in the sociology of technology. SCOT provides a multi-directional model based on the property of interpretative flexibility, and emphasizes on social influences on the technology design and development. This paper will apply SCOT principles to explore the development of cell phone, define the development of cell phone into three different stages historically, and analyze the interpretative flexibility of the cell phone accordingly in the three different stages. Based on SCOT theory, this paper will discuss how the original huge cell phones are shaped and developed by social influences to the smartphones in today’s life. In 1983, Motorola released its first cell phone, known as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, which offered 30 minutes of talk-time, six hour standby, and could store 30 phone numbers. By that time, cell phones were extremely expensive -- the DynaTAC 8000X costs 3995 dollars, and the cellular network was limited. To analyze the development and interpretative flexibility of the cell phone at its early stage, we must first introduce social groups that were related to the artefact. The users of the artefact were the most important social group. At the time, users were mainly constructed by businessmen, managers, politicians, doctors,big companies, military etc. who had high income and had to remain in contact with others occasionally. For them, the cell phones were the extension of corded phones that helps keeping the communication on without the limit of ranges. Thus, the problems that this social group had with cell phones are rather clear. The cell phones were too big and heavy, the talking time was too short for frequent users, and the nu... ... middle of paper ... ...1fS3NiLAE&sig=n5NJOhab0TTbBoXm MGv7xddRqAU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6-JxUr_oOoqPiAKg8oGYDg&ved=0CHYQ6AEw BA#v=onepage&q=price%20of%20cell%20phone%20in%201980s&f=false Chowdhury. R. Evolution Of Mobile Phones: 1995 - 2012. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-mobile-phones/ MobiThinking. Global mobile statistics 2013 Part A: Mobile subscribers; handset market share; mobile operators. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#subscribers Poole. I. History of Mobile Phone. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/history/mobile-cell-phone.php UMTS World. History of UMTS and 3G development. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.umtsworld.com/umts/history.htm WorldMapper. Cellular Subscribers 1990. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=333

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