A Discussion on the Revolution Mobile Brought to Society

The telephone first thought of in 1831, soon becoming a reality in 1876, eventually evolved into an extremely powerful handheld mobile device also known as the cell phone. This new way of communication allowed people a much more simple way of delivering a message from point A to point B. People no longer had to hand deliver a message that they wanted to send.

With the telephone, people could be a certain distance away to deliver a message. As the telephone evolved, the distance between which a message could be delivered increased.

Now, in today’s modern society, some phone plans have the ability to make a call or send a text message all around the world. It does cost money to do this however, but it does show how far the telephone has grown.

The ability to send text messages has also made communication so much easier. In some scenarios, it is not appropriate to talk on the phone because it could be loud and interrupting another or the conversation doesn’t want to be overheard.

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Text messaging is a more recent form of communication that has been constantly growing and is now one of the most popular forms of communication around the world. It is more convenient for a lot of people as well. The revolution of cell phones has greatly changed the way that people communicate with one another and have become an integral part in modern day society with a huge impact since first invented.

The idea of the telephone wasn’t just thought of and worked upon by one person.

Several people put time and effort into creating a device like the telephone. The telephone was first thought of by Michael Faraday in 1831. He proved that “vibrations of metal could be converted to electrical impulses” (Ament). Then, in 1861, Johann Phillip Reis “built an apparatus that changed sound to electricity and back again to sound” (Ament).

Twenty three years later, Alexander Graham Bell “while working on a multiple telegraph, developed the basic ideas for the telephone” (Ament). Finally, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Watson “transmit the first complete sentence” (Ament). Having the first sentence being fully transmitted was a huge breakthrough. This proved that this new form of communication that was being worked on was in fact possible. This provided a huge breakthrough for the invention of the telephone. In 1877, Alexander Graham Bell started a business called the Bell Telephone Company to operate local telephone exchange operations. From this point on, the telephone kept rapidly evolving more and at a steady rate, becoming more popular. This was crucial to the communication world as it now opened up a whole new industry. More jobs became available to people who wanted to work and experiment with the telephone. The early telephone had many wires and was quite a hassle to operate but as it evolved, it became easier to use and people could enjoy its use much more.

Eventually people realized that wires were what was holding the telephone back. Scientists realized that they needed to go completely wireless with phones. The more sophisticated end types of phones cost a lot of money and not many people owned one. Most often between the years of 1995-2000, many homes still had a wired phone. A wireless, decent costing phone that many people could afford was what was needed. Phones were also kind of bulky back then too. They usually took up your whole hand and sometimes even more than that. Scientists and developers also realized that the telephone, “would be better off if they could reduce its size by a good amount” (Ament). People wanted to communicate with the telephone. That was its primary purpose- to talk to people easily and effectively. American society, however, is becoming more and more stubborn by the year. They want things their way a lot which includes the best type of phone that is not too large.

The ongoing ideas of wireless phones eventually led into the idea and development of the cell phone or mobile phone. Soon after the original telephone was invented, there was such thing as a mobile phone. It wasn’t anything like a mobile phone by today’s standards though. The mobile phones back then were most often placed in cars first starting in the 1970’s. However, they were big and clunky and often times weren’t too reliable. Something more efficient and reliable was needed.

Creation of the mobile phone did take a lot of time and effort. Scientists worked around the clock to get the job done. “The first handheld mobile phone was created and functioned correctly in 1973 and weighed about one kilogram” (Walsh). Other mobile phones did exist before this but they were not handheld which makes them different from the handheld phone. There is a big difference between the two. The original ones would sometimes require two hands to operate but the handheld devices would allow people to use them with only one. This was the beginning of the cell phone era. They weren’t popular within the first few years of being available because they still cost quite a bit of money but they were more reliable than its precedents. The cell phone when it was first created was originally designed just for basic communication. That basic communication was just talking into the phone and having the other person receive what was being said. This is what the device was made to do but people soon realized that it could do more than just communicate by voice. What they realized was that they could assign letters and symbols to each of the numbers on the keypad. This created a new form of communication- text messaging.

The middle aged cell phones started to introduce this new form of communication into their phones. Citizens wanted the most ways to communicate as possible and texting was one of them. “Standard SMS (text messaging) messaging uses 140 bytes per message, which translates to 160 characters of the English alphabet using 7-bit encoding or as few as 70 characters for languages sing non-Latin alphabets using UTF-16 encoding” (Robinson). This system is the standard way that text messages are sent. Phones still use this form of encoding today.

Text messaging allowed people to communicate with other people discretely as well as save time. Sending a text would mean that no other person could “hear” what was being said to the other person unless they were also looking at the cell phone. It was also time saving because talking on the phone does take time out of the day and people could find themselves talking for a long time (Robinson). Texting isn’t directly talking to people so a response could be sent at any time of the day whereas on the phone, once the call is disconnected, there is no more talking back to that person unless another phone call is made to that person. This could be a hassle to some people, which is why they prefer to text people.

Phones are classified into which generation they came from with each generation showing a significant increase in features than the previous one. The first generation (1G) was made once the first cell phones were being made. The second generation (2G) was developed during the early 1990’s. The third generation (3G) of phones was created during 2001 because it became obvious that people started to use cell phones in their everyday life and data services began to rapidly grow. Very recently, in 2009, a fourth generation network (4G) went into development. It is now in use today as well as a major amount of 3G phones still in circulation (Robinson).

Today’s modern day cell phone can practically do anything. The normal features of communication from just a phone has evolved so much that certain phones have been given a new name to show how powerful they are. These phones are smartphones. A smartphone is a mobile phone that is built on a mobile computing platform with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a normal cell phone that only had the ability to make phone calls or send text messages. Smartphones are extremely fast and reliable today. The creators of them now incorporate other useful applications into the phone such as weather, maps, emailing services and mobile music playing opportunities. Developers constantly think about new, faster ways to incorporate different features into their phones. Every phone is different and has their advantages and disadvantages today. The communication factor of this has become so much better since first created back in the 1970’s. Communication between two people occurs so much quicker with technology rapidly changing each year (Schram).

An example of a smartphone is Apple’s iPhone. The iPhone is considered to be one of the greatest phones created to date. Its speed and features out-do many phones on the market today. Each year, a new one is made with even more helpful features and uses than the previous one. Apple also keeps it simple when it comes to naming their devices. They simply add the next number after the phone so people know which one is the most recent and up to date.

Other companies, such as Android, don’t particularly follow this pattern which can make it confusing to some people as to what is new and what is not new. Apple’s iPhone 4S is one of the most up to date phones on the market. Its newest feature, Siri, allows the user to actually talk to the phone and ask it to do something for you such as make a phone call, send a text message, set a reminder for you, set alarm clocks, ask for directions and even search the web. This is a great feature for everybody because it allows people to use it when they don’t have hands available to use their phone with. This shows just how much communication has come throughout the years. It all started with just talking into an oversized phone and now so much more can be done with just a small device the size of a person’s hand.

The cell phone has had a huge impact on society and the entire world as it has grown since 1973. It made delivering a message, the main purpose of a phone, so much faster. It revolutionized the social and technology industry. In the 1700’s, if somebody wanted to deliver a message to a person in another country, they would have to send a messenger there or go deliver it to that person themselves. This process could take months to complete, but with the introduction of the cell phone, a message could be delivered within minutes. Today, that message can be delivered in seconds and so can a response (Hopkins).

Technology is constantly growing and changing, which means that future cell phones will have even more efficient ways of communication throughout the world. It seems that each year, the industry changes for the better even more than it did the previous year. Even more features will be thought of and added into the phones. This is a great thing as it creates many jobs for a large number of people. Useful applications are now a huge thing to develop. Developers are always being found to create a working, helpful application for phones and they will always be needed. Many kids today have some sort of device that can run applications on it and kids love games.

There will always be the need of developers that make games. There is an unlimited amount of ideas that can be thought of and made a reality for a game. The same thing can apply to adults. Even adults need apps to help them with things they need to get done. Businesses have developed applications to help run the business at a more efficient rate and even adults like to have fun too. Apple’s app store was released to the public on July 10, 2008. In just three and a half years, the app store has grown to more than 500,000 applications with over 25 billion downloads worldwide (Hopkins). That is just the facts for the Apple App Store too. There are several others for each phone company such as Android and Blackberries. These app stores also have a significant number of applications available for people.

Phones have changed society for the better as well. They have become a crucial part of many people’s everyday life whether it be on a social factor or work factor- the modern day cell phone can do it all with all sorts of communication techniques. People are always using their cell phones and need them. They are a quick way to get in contact with another person. Even businesses today use smart phones as a way to manage their business. They can quickly email clients or employees and maintain stocks that they own. This greatly enhances the abilities and limits that a small business can go to- making communication so much easier.

Cell phones have and always will have an impact on society. They allow people to do many things that they normally could not do without a phone. Communication has become a lot easier with the introduction of the cell phone. People can take them anywhere they want to and can easily fit into an average sized pocket. Cell phones will continue to revolutionize society and the way they use phones for years to come.