Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion

Abstract:

Mobile phones have been a part of our life for decades and have found uses that they were never intended for by the creators. They have found their way into many different aspects of life including home, social, work and education. Some say the mobile phone has a positive effect, some say otherwise. This report will look at the arguments for and against these theories, conduct research into the feelings of those around us, compare the results and finally state the findings and recommendations.

Introduction:

This essay will look into the effect that mobile phones have had on society and compare the positive and negative effects to get an understanding of whether they have pushed society in the right direction or if they are leading the new e-generation into a dark hole of despair. To get a better insight as to what extent the mobile phone has affected us, the effects that were brought about by the original introduction of the telephone will briefly be looked into.

Back in the seventeenth century if one wanted to contact another outside of travelling distance they would have relied on the postal service; a slow and possibly unreliable method where a handwritten letter would be put in an envelope and physically taken by hand to where ever the letter was addressed. If you were well off maybe a telegram, a slightly faster service but possibly too expensive for the working class. Now days this method of person to person, non commercial contact is all but going extinct (let alone the hand written bit). The option of sending a letter is not comparable to the convenience, cost, speed and reliability of other methods available in the world of today.

During the eighteenth century there was a lot of development in the communications industry, more specifically in the telecommunications industry. The telephone worked its way into society and a new method of mass communication was born. With one million four hundred thousand telephones around at the beginning of the eighteenth century people were able to pick up the ear piece, dial a number (most likely using a rotary dial system) and speak to another as though they were next to each other (Russell, 200?). Granted the quality was at first poor, and maybe the equipment was a little expensive but the business boomed. People could now telephone friends and loved ones, news would travel further and faster than ever before, business could now spread out, as quick reliable communication was achievable. Now, fast forward about seventy three years and a revolution is in the mist with the introduction of the first ‘mobile’ phone, the Motorola DynaTAC. The background of which was brought into reality and practicality by Joel Engel and Richard Frenkiel (Ament, 2006).

Heading now to the 1990’s the second generation mobile phones were introduced and now another method of communication was born, maybe one which has far more impact and relevance in society today than would have been imagined at its conception, the text message. At this point people can call or text anyone with a mobile phone, anywhere (as long as they were in a network covered area). So considering the mobile phone is just an extension of the telephone, a revolutionary communications device that made business and family life easier than ever, how would this new technology affect society in years to come?


Conclusion:

In conclusion mobile phones have had a big impact on society. Mobile phones have diffused into all age groups and cultures. These devices, originally designed as an extension of the telephone, have evolved to encompass new uses and now even have their own language which again is adopted by people of all age groups, not only youths. Mobile phones have found themselves useful in all walks of life, some would even say starting to encroach and have a negative impact on life. The findings of this report show that the opinion of many is very negative on the effect of mobile phones in education. The report also confirms that health warnings on mobile phones do little to change the way people use their mobile phone probably due to not enough research available to say mobile phones have a negative effect on health. The mobile phone does appear to be having a good impact on family and social life as people can keep in contact which surely is only a good thing.

Evaluation Of Results

The questionnaire results show that mobile phones have diffused into the culture of most age ranges with 96.6% of volunteers owning a mobile phone, the percentage of those volunteers in each age range can be seen from the results section.

The questionnaire agrees to a large extent with Aykac 2008 that mobile phones are viewed as having a negative impact on children in the education system, 83% of volunteers having this view, and disagrees with Castells theory that mobile phones and the text language sparks creativity. However the survey shows that the abbreviated text language has had a huge impact on society with 60% of volunteers using such a language, this is almost double that of non users of the text language.

The questionnaire agrees with the findings of Ofcom in that although 83.3% of volunteers were aware of the health issues only 16.7% were inclined to change the way they used their mobile phone, suggesting that there is not enough evidence to prove mobile phones are actually bad for your health. Mobile phone masts themselves were only a cause for concern for one third of the volunteers suggesting evidence contrary to the findings of Hale, Poulter and Whiteside that children in schools were at risk from the harmful effects of radiation from phone masts.

When investigating the uses of mobile phones it can be seen that only 7% of volunteers use their phone for work contrary to the theory of Chelsey that mobile phones have encouraged the spill over of work and home life. The survey shows that the primary use of mobile phones is for social purposes with 60%, family coming in second with 30%.

Research Results

Questionnaire

My name is Tristan Wahl; I am currently studying for a degree in Engineering at Anglia Ruskin University. As part of my degree I am writing an essay considering the effects of the mobile phone on society. To complete research in the subject area I have put together a fully anonymous questionnaire. All the questions are optional, if you don’t want to answer a particular question then please do not.

What age range are you?
18 – 24	25 – 30	31 – 40	41 – 50	51 – 60	61 +
Do you own a mobile phone?
Yes	No
What do you primarily use your mobile phone for? (please tick only one)
Social	Family	Work	N/A
What medium do you primarily use your mobile phone for? (please tick a maximum of two)
Call	Text	E-mail	Web	Photo	Video	N/A
Are you aware of health issues surrounding mobile phones?
Yes	No
Does this affect the way you use your mobile phone?
Yes	No	N/A
Do phone masts and the radiation emitted from them give you cause for concern?
Yes	No	N/A
When you write a text message do you use abbreviated ‘txt’ language or proper words?
‘txt’	Proper	N/A
Do you feel that the ‘txt’ language has a positive or negative impact on the language of children in education?
Positive	Negative	Don’t Know
Please add any comments about your thoughts on mobile phones:

Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey, I greatly appreciate all input received.

Research Methodology

Data will be collected from reading a mix of primary sources and secondary sources using books, the internet, leaflets, newspapers and a survey.

The survey will consist of convenience samples of different age groups, and administered in the form of an interview, this is best practice meaning the data collected will be more reliable as the conditions the survey was taken in and the manor in which answered can be controlled (Robson 2007).

For the purposes of this report the survey will consist of thirty samples due to time and resource constraints. Ideally a much larger and representative sample would be used to represent the opinion of the general society. No pilot questionnaire will be undertaken.

The survey will supply objective data which will be used to produce statistics for comparison to current theories. There will be ten questions to cover the basis of the report. The questions will be easy to understand and not leading. Answers to the questions will be multiple choices as this is a quick way to collect objective data.

There will be a short letter of introduction to explain why the survey is being carried out and to explain that the survey and all answers are optional. The survey will be completely anonymous as personal information will not help with the report.

Literature Review

Aykac 2008 argues that cell phones are “disruptive and distractive” and that they have no use in the educational environment, however Castells 2006 notes that the new language brought about by having to summarise text in SMS text messages sparks creativity in the younger generations. Castells goes on to cite Fortunati 2003, the action of texting makes adolescents discover “the attraction of the written word”. Hale, Poulter and Whiteside 2005 state that a third of British schools have a mobile phone mast within 200 meters and go on to say their findings come “days after Government experts warned of a genuine radiation risk to young brains, particularly in children of primary school age.” On the other hand an Ofcom report cited on the World Health Organisation Fact sheet 304, 2006 explains that “Ofcom has performed over 500 measurements around masts, predominantly near schools and hospitals. The highest radiofrequency emission level recorded was 1/279^th of the ICNIRP guidelines.”

Reimer 2006 cites Chelsey that mobile phones have lead to an increased level of spill over between work and home and has noted that this has had negative effects to family life. Interestingly, Reimer went on to describe how the mobile phone is increasing gender inequalities at work as women were more often contacted by children or family than men. Devitt and Roker 2006 find that mobile phones play an important part in family life and allow children to gain independence whilst the parents still have an element of control through the mobile phone. Older children use the mobile phone for a courtesy text/call to worried parents. They also find that the parents prefer to physically hear their child’s voice whereas children prefer to text.

“Developing countries are driving an explosion in global mobile phone use” says Tryhorn 2009 who then carries on to say that from 2002 to 2007 mobile phone usage increased by about 3 billion users, two thirds of which was accounted for by developing countries. Tryhorn compared this to a modest increase of only 0.27 billion using landlines over the same period, suggesting that developing countries are skipping straight to mobile technology. Oxfam 2007 shows that mobile phone coverage in developing countries is still not excellent with mainly the big towns and cities having coverage and that people still may need to rely on a satellite phone, which is more expensive.

VARK Reflection

Visual: 3

My result for the visual learning is quite low and this is understandable. I find I learn from diagrams better if I actually re-draw the diagrams in my own way as this makes use of the Visual and Read/Write learning styles.

Aural: 1

This result is expected. I do find it difficult to learn from listening to someone speaking and need to take notes, visualise and use the information I have gained before I am happy I have learned the information. I find it easier to learn this way if the speaker includes jokes and speaks more personally as this is more memorable for me.

Read/Write: 3

I find it easier to learn by writing as the information does sink in better. When I read I tend to get bored easily and it is a struggle for me to carry on reading. However I find it better if I read then write the information, going over the information twice and not allowing myself to become bored.

Kinesthetic: 7

I was not surprised by this result as i find it much easier to learn things by actually putting knowledge into action and even easier if I can find a relevance to me. The trial and error method works very well for me and as people say, you learn from your mistakes, I have found this rings true throughout my life. I feel this is a slight disadvantage to be mainly a kinesthetic learner as it is probably the hardest one for lecturers to implement in lectures.

Conclusion:

I find the results quite true to life as i do learn best by doing, however if this is not possible i need to use multiple learning styles to help me learn. I need to work on my aural learning skills. I have looked on the VARK website for information on how to implement each learning style and found the information interesting and I shall try to use some of the methods in my study. I found the VARK websites description of a "K" learner frighteningly similar to myself.