Uses and Abuses of Mobile Phone

When Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, it was a revolution in communication. For the first time, people could talk to each other over great distances almost as clearly as if they were in the same room. Nowadays, though, we increasingly use Bell’s invention for emails, faxes and the internet rather than talking. Over the last two decades a new means of spoken communication has emerged: the mobile phone.

The modern mobile phone is a more complex version of the two-way radio. Traditional two-way radio was a very limited means of communication. As soon as the uses moved out of range of each other’s broadcast area, the signal was lost. In the 1940s, researchers began experimenting with the idea of using a number of radio masts located around the countryside to pick up signals from two-way radios. A called would always be within range of one of the masts; when he moved too far away from one mast, the next mast would pick up the signal. (Scientists referred to each mast’s reception area as being a separate “cell”; this is why in man countries mobile phones are called “cell phones”.)

However, 1940s technology was still quite primitive, and the “telephones” were enormous boxes which had to be transported by car.

The first real mobile telephone call was made in 1973 by Dr Martin Cooper, the scientist who invented the modern mobile handset. As soon as his invention was complete, he tested it by calling a rival scientist to announce his success. Within a decade, mobile phones became available to the public. The streets of modern cities began to feature sharp-suited characters shouting into giant plastic bricks. In Britain the mobile phone quickly became synonymous with the “yuppie”, the new breed of young urban professionals who carried the expensive handsets as status symbols. Around this time many of us swore that we would never, ever own a mobile phone.

But in the mid-90s, something happened. Cheaper handsets and cheaper calling rates meant that, almost overnight, it seemed that everyone had a mobile phone. And the giant plastic bricks of the 80s had evolved into smooth little objects that fitted nicely into pockets and bags. In every pub and restaurant you could hear the bleep and buzz of mobiles ringing and registering messages, occasionally breaking out into primitive versions of the latest pop songs. Cities suddenly had a new, post-modern birdsong.

Moreover, people’s timekeeping changed. Younger readers will be amazed to know that, not long ago, people made spoken arrangements to meet at a certain place at a certain time. Once a time and a place had been agreed, people met as agreed. Somewhere around the new millennium, this practice started to die out. Meeting times became approximate, subject to change at any moment under the new order of communication: the Short Message Service (SMS) or text messages. Going to be late? Send a text message! It takes much less effort than arriving on time, and it’s much less awkward than explaining your lateness face-to-face. It’s the perfect communication method for busy modern lifestyle. Like email before it, the text message has altered the way we write in English, bringing more abbreviations and a more lax approach to language construction. The 160-character limit on text messages had led to a new, abbreviated version of English for fast and instantaneous communication. Traditional rules of grammar and spelling are much less important when you’re sitting on the bus, hurriedly typing “Will B 15 min late – C U @ the bar. Sorry! :-”

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I don’t want to deny the good effect the mobile phone gives us, it make us communicate more conveniently, and keep in touch everywhere. But every coin has two sides. I find I have no privacy, my boss and friends can easily find me whenever they want. I am often woken by the ring of my mobile phone, just my friends wanting to tell me a joke, and my happy weekend time is often broken by my boss, just because he needs me to work overtime. I haven’t been able to enjoy a whole quiet day since the day I owned the mobile phone. It is an interesting thing that I will be upset if I have my mobile phone power off, I don’t know if I have began to rely on it, so my mobile phone is on 24 hours a day.

I find the emergence of mobile phones make us lose good habits, such as punctuality. When we couldn’t keep in touch so easily, if we had a date with someone, we tried our best to arrive on time. But now, because of the mobile phone, we are not afraid of being late any more. If we are likely to be late, we will call him and say I am sorry I will be late, it seems that I am on time if I give him a late call.

The third thing is that the mobile phone makes me put much money in int. With the development of science, the mobile phone has changed more and more quickly. I can’t keep pace with the changes. I am conscious of the quick changes from big mobile phones to advanced mobile phones that can download films and send photos. I have changed my mobile phone four or five times, about one time every year, and so spend too much money on it.

Of course, we can’t come back to the time of no phones, and I can’t image the time that we had no phones. The mobile phone gives us a lot of good things, but we should not neglect the bad aspects.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of mobile phones? I think it is important to think why we use mobile phones. We should know our aims. We use all technical things, such as mobile phones, laptops, cameras, the internet etc. We should use things to satisfy our needs easily. If we know how, we can turn off our mobile phone when we don’t want to be disturbed by someone. If we know how to use a mobile phone, we can eliminate many disadvantages. It has more advantages than disadvantages. We can communicate everywhere, which is very important. Nowadays mobile phones have many good features – we can take photos and send them all over the world.