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INTRODUCTION

Today, mobile phones have become some of the most indispensable objects in our life. With their amazing communication features, people cannot imagine life without these modern devices. Aside from being a fashion attribute and part of individual lifestyles, these phones also offer numerous benefits to their users (Appadurai. 1996); one of which is staying connected with other people wherever and whenever possible. With all these benefits, we failed to realise the downside of having a mobile phone. In long run are there any effects of using mobile phone? Therefore, this report is prepared to underline the role of mobile phones in our lives generally and it is our duty to outline this matter therefore it is not taken lightly. As we know, mobile phones nowadays are not only considered as trend, it is also a basic necessity even in young generation. As we go forward, we will discuss the advantages will be considered towards the disadvantages in order to obtain an accurate understanding of the effects of mobile phones on individual life. What are the advantages of using a mobile phone? Are there disadvantages of using a mobile phone?

BACKGROUND At first, mobile phones were introduced as electronic devices used to provide wireless communication and short messaging service (SMS). They also featured phone book storage, time and date organisation, and calculators. These applications catered the needs of the working adult such as professionals, officers and etc. The first mobiles also served as a way to manage appointments and keep track of notes and reminders. With the developments in technology, these electronic devices have become more advanced. Users can now use them when sending multimedia messages and storing multiple phone book entries. Accordingly, they can use the phone to check their email or surf the Internet. Latest models of mobile phones allow them to take pictures, videos, play games, and listen to music. Bluetooth and infrared technology, meanwhile, help the user to transmit or exchange information such as music files, pictures, tones, and videos in just a matter of seconds with others.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The technological development of mobile phones has provided many advantages to people. For instance, a mobile phone can play a vital role in managing a crime (Thompson, 1995). This is due to the fact that mobiles nowadays can help track people. In times of natural disasters, these gadgets have proven to be very useful. They offer emergency call services to users who get stuck in certain locations during floods and earthquakes. With its quick advancements, mobile phones continue to greatly improved over time, making them more useful to people. Considering that fact a serious question arises. Most believe that possessing a mobile phone hides numerous disadvantages with social problems, health and economic issues being the leading ones on a lengthy list. The questions are what are the advantages of using a mobile phone? Are there disadvantages of using a mobile phone?

CASE 1: EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR COMMUNICATION Mobile Phones have become the necessity in todays world. Communication will be nothing without the help of these wonderful gadgets. They are helping the people to get connected with their dear ones instantly anytime. People of all age groups and all sections of the society need them. They have become the basic requirement for todays generation. This increased hot competition among the mobile manufacturing companies to produce high quality mobile phones with all the latest features that meet the needs of todays people. Nowadays, mobile phones are perfect for business needs. They are having all the high end applications that are required for business use. In the hands of an experienced user, the mobile phone is becoming a powerful tool for mass communication. Sales and field workers and traveling employees use them to communicate with the home office or with clients. They fill an important void in distance communication. In addition to that, mobile phones allow employees to receive important calls without having to spend every moment behind a desk. They are also useful for getting in touch with sales staff and other professionals who spend most of their work hours outside the office.

However, mobile phones do present some challenges for quality business operations. Below are just a few setbacks of mobile phones as means of communication.

1.1

Workflow Disruption Mobile phone communication, both in the form of personal calls and work-related calls, in the workplace may disrupt an employee's work flow since it increases the perception that your employees are always available to accept calls. An employee who has to stop work tasks throughout the day may suffer from decreased productivity, which can cause the employee to miss deadlines or put in extra hours to complete projects on time.

1.2

Difficulty Monitoring Calls Some small business have a vested interest in monitoring calls made during work hours -it can help reduce personal calls and provide information you can use to coach employees on communicating with clients and business contacts more effectively. Setting up a callmonitoring system on a traditional land-line network is relatively simple; however, it is not typically possible for small business owners to monitor communications via cell phone.

1.3

Balance between Work and Life Employees, who receive work-related calls outside of normal work hours, whether on a company-provided phone or a personal cell phone, may feel an imbalance between their work and personal lives. It can be difficult for an employee to enjoy time away from work when her duties spill over into family, social and rest time. This can increase employee stress, reducing the ability of employees to manage work tasks effectively.

1.4

Harassment Mobile phones allow employees to communicate through media other than voice. Enhanced technology allows the transmission and receipt of text messages, videos, pictures, emails and instant messages. Employees who have access to other employees' cell phone numbers may use cellular communication to send harassing texts, emails and instant messages. They may also send communications, pictures and videos that the recipient finds offensive or unprofessional. This can create workplace discord and increase the need for employee discipline.

CASE 2: HEALTH Handheld mobile telephones have transformed the telecommunications industry. These devices can be used to make telephone calls from almost anywhere. Communication between a mobile phone and the nearest base station is achieved by radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields. There is no clear evidence in the existing scientific literature that the use of mobile telephones poses a long-term public health hazard (although the possibility of a small risk cannot be ruled out). Users concerned about the possibility of health effects can minimise their exposure to the RF emissions by: limiting the duration of mobile telephone calls, making calls where reception is good, using a 'hands-free' attachment or speaker options, or by texting. Given the lack of any data relating to young users and long term use of mobile phones, and their potentially long lifetime use of them, ARPANSA recommends that parents encourage the users to limit their exposure by reducing call time, by making calls where reception is good, by using hands-free devices or speaker options, or by texting. The use of mobile phones has skyrocketed since the 1980s. If mobile phones increase the risk of brain cancer, more and more people should now be developing this disease. But studies in the USA, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland have found that the numbers of people with brain cancer have not changed very much. And in the UK, the incidence of brain cancer has been constant for years. However, brain cancers can take many years to develop, so it is possible that these trends would only start rising after more time.

CASE 3: INTERNET ACCESS 3.1 Easy Access The internet operates 24 hours 7 days a week; users don't need to wait until resources are available to conduct business. From a consumer's perspective as well as a provider's business can be consummated at any time. The fact that the Internet is operational at all times makes it the most efficient business machine to date. Employees can reply email in an instant. Video conferencing calls can be done anywhere in the globe. These features do give some employees advantages to work from home. The internet also has brought about new opportunities to government, business and education. Governments use the Internet for internal communication, distributions of information and automated tax processing. For examples, in Bangladesh, India the use of Internet has increased in the last few years. In additional offering any goods & services buy online to customers, a businessman can spread his businesses more easily. Today much individual use the Internet for shoppings paying utility bill, credit card bill, admit ion fees, E commerce, online banking facility, educational institutes use the Internet for research and to deliver courses to students online at remote sites. 3.2 Relatively Inexpensive Furthermore, it is relatively inexpensive to publish or send information on the Internet. At a fraction of the cost to publish information by traditional methods, various organizations and individuals can now distribute information to millions of users. It costs only a few thousand dollars to establish an Internet presence and publish content on the Internet. Almost, all the phones that are made now days have facility to use internet. This is very important for people of all age groups. People who work can get their mails on the phone itself. The most widely spread disadvantage though the most unseen, is the addictive relation developed between a mobile telephone and its user. Along with the age drop of the mobile phone users and the ease of prepaid method provide by the system operators, most users now own their own mobile phone and network service. Users are engaged on their mobile phones all the time, no matter on phone calls, using SMS text messages, personalizing the mobile phones with ringtones and pictures etc.

3.3

Abuse Internet is the most reliable and cheapest mode of communication. It has huge

potentiality for the significant improvement of economic productivity. In most countries, also in the production of goods & services both in government and private sectors, it is paying a vital role. However, it has some abuses too nowadays when aboard the demerits of internet. Employees sometime keep chafing and whiling away their time with friends or even unknown persons, when they are supposed to be their desk working. Sometimes in worse case scenarios, they tend to enjoy pornography, and do many immoral and hazardous tasks. Thus they are going away from their role in the company, duties and becoming morally degraded. In additional sometimes criminal and terrorists take the advantage of internet to materializes their goal. They exploit certain people in organizations as their means of fulfilling their task. It is called cyber bullying (Bauman,1995); even some heinous and immoral person to belittle and derogate others, we should use internet sorting the best out of it so that we ourselves can be benefited and can benefits others. To keep pace with the rest of the world in every sector, we must be connected with internet. Therefore using internet wisely is important.

CASE 4: PERSONAL SECURITY

4.1

Emergencies When you are away from home there is always a fear in the mind of your loved ones

about your well being but if you have a cell phone, that means, they can remain in your contact all the time. It can reduce if not completely vanishes that fear. In emergency mobile phone can be a great help. Imagine, your car broke down in the middle of a highway and there is no help around at that time a mobile can save you. Many senior people can be a little more independent because now days there are many mobiles with the facilities that are very useful in emergencies. In emergency, a touch of a button can send a number of messages to the close relatives and friends. This feature is very helpful for people or people with some severe disease and living alone.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Mobile phones are a recent invention. So far, studies have indicated that using these phones for about 10 years is safe. But we cannot be completely sure about their long-term effects. There are many types of effect discussed in this report. We have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of mobile phone especially in working adults. Of course these are only researched that have been done by other scholars and information on the internet. There have not been enough studies looking at how mobile phones could affect the health of users generally. Research is underway to fill both of these gaps in our knowledge. Until we get a conclusive answer, the government recommends that people take precautions. One simple way to be cautious, if users want to use a mobile phone, they could choose to minimise their exposure by keeping calls short. Children under the age of 16 should only use mobile phones for essential calls, because their head and nervous systems may still be developing. We can take some countries as example. In 2000, the UK signed up to a set of international safety standards, which set a limit on the amount of radiation given off by phones (Harper, 2004). These limits have a very large safety margin to protect people who may be more sensitive to phone radiation, such as children and heavy users of mobile phone such as the working adults. Other than that I recommend that we create awareness to the employees. We can distribute posters and reminders to them. We can also use the internet to create these awareness measures such as bulk emails on important information about the effects of mobile phones, how to use mobile phones carefully and such. So far in my opinion the best thing we can do is to remind the users.

CONCLUSION

It is a fact that having a mobile phone now a days is a sort of necessity and it is an inevitable truth that mobile industry is taking everyones mind by a storm. From the very basic thing of making a call, texting, and now Internet access for just a touch of your fingertips. Users should learn how to use the mobile phones properly before buying them, which is the mobile culture. Mobile phones are not bad themselves, it just depends on the way we use them. In general, mobile phones have both pros and cons to our society. They make the people's lives and works become more convenient. However, mobile phones still impact badly on health, time and communication of individuals. To avoid these problems, each person should manage the time of using mobiles reasonably. Besides, the awareness of people about the disadvantages of mobile phones should be improved.

In conclusion, mobile phone is not only used for the welfare of humankind but also its misuse has serious effects on our society worldwide. Time and again, there are the reports that mobile phones are being misused by antisocial and miscreant elements to carry out their inhumane activities. Good or bad are the two sides of a coin, but it is up to the users, to make a best use of mobile phone.

REFFERENCE

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www.mobilephonesites.co.uk. Accessed October 1, 2004 6. Hulme, Michael. 2001 "Me, My Mobile and I" Proceeding of the Computer Interaction Society International Conference. Seattle, USA. cited in "Downtime" by Mark Lewis in Computer Weekly, May 20, 2003 www.computerweekly.com Accessed October 1st 2004). 7. Mackenzie, Donald. and Judy Wajcman. (eds) 1985. The Social Shaping of Technology. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 8. Madge, John. 1965. The Tools of Social Science; An Analytic Description of Social Science Techniques. New York: Doubleday Anchor. 9. Slater, Don. 1997. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. 10. Thompson, John. 1995. The Media and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. 11. Townsend, Anthony M. 2000. "Life in the RealMobile Telephones and Urban Metabolism." Journal of Urban Technology (7)2:85-104.

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