By Iqra Rehman.
In the advancing age of information technology, the mobile phones have become the essential part of life and its popularity cannot be denied; now the cell phones are not luxury but the necessity.
Smart Users
The main and active user of smart phones is teenagers who feel their life incomplete and drab without cell phone. There is no doubt that due to smartphones our life is become easier and now the communication is much easier than past, we have accesses to all the information around the globe. The cell phones are used by all the persons irrespective of age, gender, economic status, educational background and demographic attributes like rural or urban, developed developing or under developed countries.
The growth in mobile phone can be seen when Swedish first time used official mobile phone in 1946, and Motorola first time introduced the portable cell phone in the market (www.techfaq.com). In Pakistan approximately 90 percent people live in areas that they have cellphone coverage, and half of Pakistanis have accesses to their cell phones (www.wikipedia.com). According to PTA (Pakistan telecommunication authority) total number of mobile phone users in Pakistan by June 2018 reached to 150.24 million and 10.6 million subscribers in one year. The 77 percent smart phone users are just 21 to 30 and the top apps that are popular among the youth are social networking 90%, games 72%, photos and videos 64%, music 55% and entertainment 55% (pas.org.pk). The cell phone industry is the most rapidly growing industry in Pakistan.
Multitasking Device
The smart phones are the multitasking device that has tremendous advantages as the thing cannot be wrong itself but it depends on a person that how they use. The first thing is communication, due to mobile phone that was convenient for user to communicate with their love once but the smart phones had make it more easier and convenient for its user to communicate with their friends family and around the globe with no time by using different modes of communication like skype, what’s app, messenger, imo and other related apps, initially the cell phone only was made to communicate easily to the person when they are far from home or office but now with advancement of technology that permit to text, talk internet surfing, email and videoconferencing sometimes at the same time.
The smartphones has made easier for its user to utilize internet more efficiently and make them self-more productive by using internet, now the more young people express their creativity and talents through their Facebook and Instagram accounts like now the can show their hidden talent by making video and uploading on social media and the good talent get viral in few days and gets appreciation and opportunity to continues it as their profession like the number of popular pages of different categories like fashion, creativity, acting, and makeup tutorials, among all of them the content creating is on its peak there are so many individuals that runs their channels and make handsome amount through this.
Internet
Smartphones along with internet service have increased the internet access easy and made online business more accessible for everyone, Now the more people significantly access to web through smartphones than desktop, as with growing market of mobile phones the online retail stores are also growing and they have an easy access to their potential customers, according to State bank of Pakistan the E-commerce market size exceed to $600 Million in 2017 and is expected to touch $1 Billion by the year of 2020, and with the rapid growth of startup businesses in Pakistan to enhance the economy, due the rising entrepreneur culture in Pakistan so many international companies like Careem, Uber and Jovago also started their operations.
The accessibility to learning information and skills become more easier as by watching different tutorial, videos, and online learning opportunity that helps to better understand not only academic subjects but to whole world that is just depend on one tap on screen.
Pros And Cons
The smart device which has uncountable benefits but everything has its own particular pros and cons, similarly smart phones has disturbed our life greatly we have no time to spend it with our family members now users of smartphones more wants to live in fantasy than reality.
There is a significant threat to the health of smartphone users, on the radiation of cellphone users so many concerns have been raised related to human being. The smart phone released the low level of radiofrequency that have a negative biological impact on the health of human being as due to radiofrequency the temperature of the body increases and may damage the tissues of the body. The level of stress also increased due to excessive use of cellphone and also cause frustration due to continues vibration, notification and reminders. This may be called the reason that today’s young generation is more in stress and depression, similarly the chronic pain is also influenced by the excessive usage of mobile phones.
The threat of security is very high in smart phones, the risk of private information, messages, photographs, online networking accounts and financial information can be breach if the mobile is stolen or mistakenly left somewhere. This is the one of the reason that now the cybercrime is increasing day by day because now a person can easily track the location of others as we have installed number of app that requires location, apart from this the account hacking is very common to blackmail other by stealing their pictures and other personal information to demand for money or for other personal interest.
There are so many mobile apps that recodes the user information that user typed on mobile like bank accounts numbers and PINS they can read the user data that is stored on mobile phone like emails, text messages, logins , credit card numbers and passwords.
The physical activities of today’s teenagers are completely spoiled they are more likely to spend hours on using their smart phones either scrolling on social media or playing video games that may cause physical problem for them, now the persons more like to be with friend virtually by texting rather top visit them physically that made them more lazy in their life.
That is important to move with world that to be able to compete but there should be some limit of everything because anything out of its limit is problematic and have negative effect as the technology is getting more and more advance so we should take advantage of it rather making it worse for yourself.
The precaution that need to take by parents or by individual themselves is to balance with technology, screen or for physical activities, the communication among family members are very important parents also need to down their phones and spend somewith their children.
The most important step that government should take is tomake strong authorities to control the crime related to technology because now the person is more insecure than ever before.