Sociology Phones

Roughly 15 years ago a new product emerged onto the market. American consumers could now purchase and use telephones that would travel with them in their automobiles. However, these inventions were large, bulky, the size of a briefcase, and weighed roughly 10 pounds. Modern day Americans have found a place in their everyday lives for this once jaw-dropping invention. Americans have also demanded, and received, adjustments to these mobile telephones. Today it is possible to purchase mobile phones that are hardly the size of one’s palm for an extremely low cost to the consumer. The recent surge in use of cellular phones has changed the way most Americans communicate. Conversely the internet has done the same. However, cell phones have grown at a much more exponential rate and have become the absolute necessity for many people. Cell phones have had a sociological impact unparalleled by any technological innovation before them. Cell phones have been at the center of controversy and skepticism, but they have also been praised for usefulness and their inevitability. This technology has been focused upon as being the source of brain cancer, car accident, attention deficit disorder, and migraines. However it has also proven to be the tool of the most successful people in the business world. The thesis this paper proposes is that cell phones have had a negative social impact but are still quite inevitable.

Once a luxury for the wealthy and powerful, cell phones have now become an absolute necessity for the masses. In 1990 there were an estimated 5 million cell phone subscribers in the United States, by 1997 the number had reached 70 million (riverdeep). As of July 2002, 46% of Americans owned a cell phone (forbes). How has this fantastic new technology affected the everyday American? As the numbers sky-rocket, Americans are becoming less and less concerned with the social world in front of them, and more concerned with the person on the other end of the phone.