Welcome the New Age Modern Phone

How many can remember the old telephones with a chord that required a special plug on the wall and that circle of dials on the front?

 

Growing up, we always had black phones, and when I got to my own place to live, I thought I was cool because mine was ivory.

You couldn’t do anything with these except make phone calls.

 

Everyone who had a house had a ‘home phone’; that was how you got in touch with people.  You had to call back if they were out, on the ‘loo’, or in the garden.  There was no option to leave a message.  Life was so much simpler then.

 

 

Enter the dragon

Mobile phones invaded our lives in 1973 when Motorola introduced the first mass-produced mobile phone, but the first patent for a mobile phone was lodged 65 years earlier in the US in 1908.

 

The first mobile phone weighed 1.1 kg, so it could hardly be carried in a jeans pocket (unless you had a really good belt).

 

I remember when I was buying a new house around that time. The real estate agent thought he was Christmas because he had  a mobile.  You wouldn’t call many people because the range was minimal, and it relied on a battery that was the size of a modern-day car battery.

 

Twenty-three years later, Vodaphone introduced the first pay-as-you-go package, which relied on prepaid packages. This had such an impact that mobile phone ownership increased by 80% in the following decade.

 

Around the same time, the first downloadable content—the ringtone—became available, and the first Blackberry hit the market.

Nicknamed the ‘crackberry’ because over 80% of owners wrote and responded to emails on holidays and over half admitted to sending emails while on the toilet; it revolutionized commercial business.

 

By 2010, we had seen the iPhone, the Android market, and the Samsung mobile phone with the first camera.

 

 

And here we are now …

September has seen the release of the latest and greatest from iPhone, the iPhone 16 which does everything except make you lunch!

 

Gone are the days when you needed a camera, a wallet, or the ability to actually speak to someone because now your phone does it all for you.  You don’t even need a watch anymore; your phone tells you the time and, in short, controls your life.  They have gotten smaller and more sophisticated to such an extent they even think for themselves!

 

They have not become cheaper exactly the opposite, but despite their expense, everyone has one.  Even if you are a kid, you must have a mobile phone.

Almost 1.4 billion phones were sold last year.

Worldwide, approximately 7.2 billion smartphones are in operation, more people than in the world.

 

The days of having a set phone on the hall stand of a home have long gone.  The days of having a wall phone whose chord turned into this python when you tried to navigate around the kitchen are also gone.

 

Even the chordless telephone at home is pretty much extinct.  Everyone has a mobile phone.

 

Every week, when I call my mother or older friends, they battle the mobile phone to make it behave.

Unfortunately, the older generation are the big losers when it comes to mobile phones.  Functions like photos, texts, and message banks can test even the most tech-savvy people over 80.  Not so the younger generation; many kids can use a phone before learning to talk.

 

Have they helped or hindered?

We didn’t expect it to be like this; it just happened. Mobile phones have quickly become taken for granted, as much as gas, electricity, or water. Most don’t remember how life was before mobile phones existed.

 

When mobile phones were introduced, they were viewed as an exclusive form of telephone service that might suit certain mobile workforces and not become an essential modern-world commodity.

 

They were certainly not something a five-year-old would own, let alone be able to use more effectively than many adults.

 

The biggest impact of the phone is on our freedom.  You can no longer say, “I am on holiday and can’t be reached for two weeks!”  You can be talking to a friend, and then they tell you they are 5000 miles away in a different country.

You can’t turn up late for a meeting and say, “I had no way of getting in touch.”

 

They negatively impact young people’s peer relationships, which, at their worst, leads to ostracism and cyberbullying.   Parents now have greater control over their children, which, under the banner of safety and surveillance, impacts the freedom of young people.

 

Yes, the mobile phone has become so ingrained in our lives; for many, it is yet another form of addiction.

 

I attended a business dinner meeting several years ago in Canada with my Canadian General Manager and the chairman of our board. The Canadian GM was a total phone addict.  The chairman became so upset with his constant reference to his phone that he took it off him for the rest of the meeting.

At the end of dinner, he returned it to the physically distraught guy, who was nearly in a coma.  He spent the next 30 minutes in the loo on his phone.

 

Whether we like it or not, they are here to stay.  Last year celebrated 50 years of the mobile phone.  Like all technology, we have to learn how to maximise its positive effects and minimise its negative effects.

 

If you don’t think you are addicted to your phone, try switching it off for a few hours and see how you get on.  It is an interesting exercise.

Are you a phone addict?  Like 80% of the population, does it control your life?

 

Till next time,

Calvin