Phone / Smartphone
Benefits
The telephone invention improved the capabilities of the telegraph. The telegraph allowed people to send messages from one place to another. But it was limited to sending and receiving messages. They had to use the Samuel Morse code, which was impractical for transmitting many non-English texts. Its exchange changed the world by allowing people to talk directly to each other over long distances. It took a while for the telephone to become widely used, but today it is one of the essential technological tools in the world. It has revolutionized the way people communicate.
Smartphones represent an important part of modern life, because with only our mobile devices we can read books, listen to music, take pictures, watch videos, play games, create and edit documents, get a medical opinion, and much more. Through miniaturized hardware that packs a processor, speakers, a camera, a GPS receiver, a Wi-Fi adapter and a high definition touch-sensitive screen into a cell-phone-sized device, a smartphone puts all of this functionality into your pocket. Through the installation of apps, the list of possible smartphone uses multiplies by tens of thousands and grows longer everyday. People are spending more and more time on their phones, increasing their usage time with almost 50% from 2019 to 2020. Villagers in third-world countries who have no local healthcare can be diagnosed and have treatment prescribed by distant healthcare providers. Children with ailments such as autism are using tablets to help them focus and communicate with those around them. Patients recovering from strokes and brain injuries are using tablets to great effect in their recoveries. Diabetics can monitor their glucose level and have it wirelessly transferred to a small insulin pump that injects just the right amount to keep them where they need to be. Blind individuals can use mobile phones to not only improve their lives but also help achieve an incredible level of independence. Not only do these phones speak to the blind so they know what is displayed on the screen, but they also have software that can safely guide them out in busy cities.
Negative Impact
Overuse of smartphones may resemble an addiction and overuse is also linked to time distortion, with the result that the smartphone is used for longer than originally intended or perceived. Smartphone overuse (in particular evening usage) seems to be associated with poor sleep quality and reduced work engagement, which is not surprising, as new numbers show that about 36–40% of smartphone owners use their smartphone in the last 5 min before going to sleep and/or in the first 5 min after waking up.
It may become a waste of time: A recent study from the digital analytic firm Flurry shows that we pick up our phones 58 times and spend on average 3-4 hours a day staring at our smart devices, nearly one day every week.
Phones addiction has a name: nomophobia, the fear of being out of cell phone contact. Therefore, not just spending too much time on our devices is a sign of addiction, but the fear of not having them on us as well. Like any other form of addiction, studies show that people that are addicted to their phones often show signs of depression, anxiety, and other forms of mental health problems. 66% of the population shows signs of nomophobia.
Smartphones notifications can impair our concentration, even being short in duration they cause enough of a distraction to affect your ability to focus on a given task, decreasing your performance by prompting task-irrelevant thoughts and mind-wandering. 84% of US working adults uses their personal phones during working hours.
It also has a huge impact on people’s social lives, people are getting more disconnected from the real world, they put their phones ahead of human interaction, it’s getting harder to see people talking to each other in public places. Our social skills seem to diminish constantly due to the overuse of smartphones and turning us into “smombie”.
Invention History
Alexander Graham Bell ( March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who developed the device in 1876, and it became one of the most important inventions in modern history. It was a crucial step in developing communication technologies and opened up new ways for people to communicate with each other.He co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Bell’s father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell’s life’s work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876.
The first smartphone, created by IBM, was invented in 1992 and released for purchase in 1994. It was called the Simon Personal Communicator (SPC), with the first touchscreen. While not very compact and sleek, the device still featured several elements that became staples to every smartphone that followed.
Apple revealed the first IPhone in 2007, with a touchscreen, iPod, camera, full internet access capabilities and a wide LCD screen designed for video. Users could download millions of third-party applications, marking a breakthrough into software capabilities.
References
https://brilliantio.com/how-did-the-telephone-change-the-world/
https://blog.mobiversal.com/the-impact-of-mobile-technology-in-our-daily-life.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4500888/
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/alexander-graham-bell
https://simpletexting.com/where-have-we-come-since-the-first-smartphone/
