Smartphones Effects on Social Life and Health

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When AT&T first came out with the Mobile Telephone Service in 1946 nobody thought it would become as important as it is now, 60 years later. These first cell phones weighed about 80 pounds, thus they lacked the handling ability of modern cell phones. By 1948 the service had about 5000 customers across the United States. In 1973 Motorola introduced the first mobile phone that at about 2.4 pounds, didn’t need heavy equipment in order to operate. It wasn’t until 10 years later that Motorola released the first commercial cell phone, the DynaTAC. Over the years these phones became more common and also cheaper until Apple introduced the iPhone, which wasn’t technically the first smartphone, but it was the first one to take off and make smartphones popular amongst almost all social groups. After 28 years of handheld phones in 2011 there was an average of 122 cell phone subscriptions per 100 people in the developed world. This increased use of cell phones has had both positive and negative effects on society in the past years (AT&T). It tremendously changed the way we communicate, but excessive use can also cause problems reaching from addiction over headaches to social isolation. Going back a couple of years hardly anybody in public places used a cell phone like people do now. Really the only people constantly on the phone were businessmen. This slowly changed when it became popular amongst common people and totally changed the way society judges smartphone use in public. As John Dvorak states; this changed from disapproval to acceptance in the past years in places such as restaurants. Years ago restaurants used to be full of conversations across the table, now this is just one end of the spectrum. Oftentimes at least one... ... middle of paper ... ...Free Dashboard Cellphones." Communications Of The ACM 56.4 (2013): 38-40. Business Source Elite. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. Syed, Sumayya Firdous, and Abu Sadat Nurullah. "Use of Mobile Phones and the Social Lives of Urban Adolescents: A Review of Literature." Trends In Information Management 7.1 (2011): 1-18. Business Source Elite. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. Thomée, Sara, Annika Härenstam, and Mats Hagberg. "Mobile Phone Use and Stress, Sleep Disturbances, and Symptoms of Depression Among Young Adults - A Prospective Cohort Study." BMC Public Health 11.1 (2011): 66-76. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. Walsh, Shari P., Katherine Marie White, and Ross McD Young. "Needing to Connect: The Effect of Self and Others on Young People's Involvement with Their Mobile Phones.” Australian Journal Of Psychology 62.4 (2010): 194-203. Academic Search Premier. Web.

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