Mobile Musings

One of the biggest revolutions the past decade that has been a benchmark of the technological and social progress for all economies in both developed and developing world has been the mobile revolution. Over the last 5-6 years, we are witnessing a n exponential growth of cellphone users, and that’s exactly what was expected. I checked the statistics for the current Indian cellphone subscribers the other day, and the number is 350 lacs and counting. The reach has been widespread, over all realms of society, over rural and urban lifestyles and for both personal and work based necessity. People now term it almost as successful as the great television revolution of the 80s that helped the society take great strides towards progress. Communicative media has undergone huge changes, long distances don’t matter that much anymore, and people are relishing the power of a 24 hour anyplace anytime connectivity.

“The Effects of Feel-Good Fashion” : Are we listening?

The mobile revolution apart from taking the large strides in reaching out to the masses, has also fuelled a greater usage and dependence on phone calls. Over all countries people can be found spending increasing amount of hours on the mobile, at the workplace, in transit or just to call a person for a cup of tea.

But are we listening to the scientific reports and the research labs statements that are coming up year after year? They persistently indicate that cellphone users need to actively worry about the health hazards to using cell-phones and take apt precautionary steps to avoid bad consequences.

Here are some of the facts as I have read on the internet and on papers:
a) Heavy Mobile Phone users are at high risk of Emanating Radiation.. It has been tested using animals and some human cells as well. There are substantial evidence to these results..
b) Not only physical distraction in case of driving, crossing the road, mobiles affect concentration. They affect short term memory and therefore can affect stablility.
c) The Radiation volume is not negligible. Also long heavy usage can lead to permanent loss of concentration and can affect the safety of the human being.

A Root Cause Analysis : OverIndulgence ? Or is it the need of the times?

When it started, mobile culture was hep. In my college times, you were cool when you got a ring in the campus. It made you look important, and you would always “Excuse Me” your way out of your group, your current occupation and animatedly talk your way out into a distance while the others gaped on. Remember the days of 16 rupees outgoing and 8 rupees incoming? Nowadays I see neighborhood mothers swear by how important her freshman daughter’s mobile call after every class in the varsity is to her, to let her know that she is safe. Others nod their heads in approval. There have been protests from guardians when schools principals disallowed cellphone usage in schools. It requires 4 cell-phones in a family of a housewife, father of two running a shop 4 blocks away, a college and a just joined office employee. Somewhere down these few years, inadvertently the luxury has transformed into a necessity. And why not, after all aren’t Raju Plumber and Manjunath Electrician legit entries in my own cellphone? What the heck, the carpenter is also there for just in case. Does my mother need to go in person to the grocer for the monthly this and that? Naah. She calls the number instead.

Off late the mobile is also the most apt testbed for technical gizmos. Its never just a phone. Mridul, my friend, recently showed me the whole Price of Persia game developed in Java downloaded to his mobile.. My colleague Kiran has recently bought a Nokia N-GAGE and I got to see the whole of Adnan Sami’s “Lift Karadey” on his mobile running a 1K MB Memory card. Fantastic. Anything on the work fronts ? Ashok, another colleague tells me of how Invensys worked on database secure calls over phone sms to its systems from the UNIX Administrator’s cell phone.

So where is the youth without a mobile? Its no-more just to make/receive calls. It’s a camera for the times you need one, it’s the extended PDA with Mailbox, web browsing capabilities. Its your organizer, your calculator, and even your entertainer.

As companies dole out new models one after the other, spare some time to look at how much time the city youth spends with his mobile, either gaming away or talking to friends, or maybe just like that.. So for these handset companies who are laughing their way to the bank shouldn’t there be any moral responsibility to safeguard health interests of its customer?

Twist my arm or bend my back : It’s the Corporate’s World

Not a long while ago, Coke India successfully rubbished up a medical institution’s claims that their concentrate/liquid contained pesticides. The director of that small institution was shown as having ulterior motives, claims were made about 99% quality and “we’ll look into the matter” and as usual the topic lived its own course and died in a month.

Here is some more read up information:
a) More and More government agencies are issuing warnings against the excessive usage of cellphones. But they cant admit a “general risk” for cellphone users. Governments themselves are hesitant to admit the problem cos it will blow the matter out and inside their inner corridors, the corporates have enough muscles to flex on their own.
b) The mobile industry is deemed “unfit” to participate in an open discussion. Every handset manufacturer claims that there is a lack of proper evidence and testing.
c) “Legal Liability prevents industry to enter into a co-operative effort to solve a problem they don’t even recognize. Precautionary Steps therefore are also being blocked.”
d) New technology will make the cellphone costlier on the purse and a direct loss of great future markets of China and India will ensue. If cellphones are to undergo the sort of procedures e.g. followed by drugs it will be far costlier for the companies.


You point at us.. why don’t you give a feasible solution

The fight will be really between the economic bigwigs. The capitalist corporate that has over the years made the phone cheaper and easier to use on one hand, with all the advantages that I describe before, and the socialist medical and research organization that thinks this to be a health danger, that thinks that the consumer ought to have the right to judge and the information about the potential consequence (that the corporates can deftly hide) but alas doesn’t have the standing and clout to fight out his cause. The solutions are in an active participation of organizations like TRAI, the ISI, the MRTPC and the Consumer Courts, the foreign counterparts FDA and other public health authorities. They should oblige and take a stern posture for these reports.

Its not easy to embed biochips for diagnostics or implement the EMX standards so widely talked about and give it to the common man, but atleast, we shouldn’t just coffin up this issue. For you can maybe do without your Coke everyday, will you be able to leave the phone? And if you cant prevent or stop the radiation, why prevent an active participation on statutory warnings on cellphone usage, or give health messages for need based use of a mobile and its safe handling. But I guess, then you enrage the other section of corporate giants who have been the other money churners - the cellular service providers themselves. Why would they want a reduction of phone calls? Hutch just announced a whole new east India package yesterday. It can eat out these research organizations 50 times over and not even burp.

What I think ….. : But who am I anyways..

I have an everyday average talk time of 45 minutes. I have my daily mp3 sessions over the earphone for 3 hours. I generally find me correcting myself for speaking too loudly sometimes, and remember the days when I could speak slowly into the speaker and the caller on the other end could hear but the person three paces away couldn’t.. :)

My Mother had called me a few months back saying.. “Don’t put the phone on your trouser pocket. People are becoming impotent” . Thats not utterly hilarious anymore. I can say I am veering towards the superstitious line too. Should I keep it in the chest pocket or the trouser one?

ATMs have warning boards, the air hostess gives her customary interfering with airplane systems announcement atleast 3 times on the flight deck, precaution in petrol pumps is the thing to abide by, some gentlemen also take care to switch their phones off before hospital medical gadgets, but why cant we be aware of our own biological system that’s in danger and take positive steps in this regard? I think this is a far dangerous and widespread customer quality issue that needs to be addressed, maybe more than anything else in city world..

All the same, its mostly us that have made ourselves overtly dependant on the gadget. People might disagree but its more Indians who I find chatting away on the local Mumbai train or across Marine drive than whatever I could see of the busy New Yorker walking past me at Manhattan. I have seen my American colleagues switch off their mobiles while at work.. keep it at entirely personal basis and more importantly.. I didn’t find the left hand of their youth always grabbing the gadget while at the theater.. or the mall or place it on the table during the office meet , maybe its generally put inside of the handbag or inside of any other carrier.. But never does it occupy one hand always as it does to the young in our cities…

Most of us remember the Nokia Handsfree advertisement that used to show a city full of neck-craned people due to over exposure to the tilted cellphone posture. Maybe some Human Rights Organizations should portray deaf and dumb people walking past in each other in the year 2015.. I don’t know the way to bring this matter to the notice of the people and start some corrective action. but can only plead or urge the capable..

My phone’s playing Guns and Roses’ Sweet Child o’ Mine at a distance. That means Akhil must have called.. I gotta take this.. :) Bye for now..