¶ … Cell Phones (Technology) On Communication Cell phones and other cellular communication equipment are omnipresent in today's digital age, with roughly 1.5 billion cellular phones used, at present, across the globe; on an average, 75 billion SMSs are sent globally, in a month (Merry, Domlija & Mackenzie, 2005). While the use of cellular communication has greatly contributed to the area of communication, cellular interferences have hampered functioning in various contexts, including driving, parenting task completion, and enrolment in academic courses. Strayer and colleagues (2005) proved that cognitive impairments linked to cell phone usage while driving may be the same as those linked to drunken driving. Impacts of distractions from cell phones have been observed in laboratory as well as naturalistic settings. Here, the word 'distraction' implies the unintentional inattention to the task at hand, which is characteristic of unlooked-for events (e.g. a call on one's cell phone). By contrast, the word 'task-switching' in literature is typically utilized for indicating intentional attention shifts. Furthermore, it is established that communication gadgets pose a cognitive disturbance across all developmental ages, right from teenage to old age. Studies have further indicated that such disturbances impact multiple cognitive elements, including logic, mental arithmetic, and working memory. While a majority of studies have concentrated on the impact of cellular disturbances on the afore-mentioned information (i.e., information storage, encoding, and recovery: working memory; number calculation: mental arithmetic; and pattern identification, among narratives presented: reasoning), not much is known regarding emotional impact on fabricated memories for incidents that didn't take place. False memory denotes remembering an incident differently than the way it actually transpired, or recalling some incident, which never took place (Merry et al., 2005).

Significance

With increased application of ICT (information and communication technology) in the last ten years, social critics voice concerns about individuals' apparent failure to disconnect. Beyond unscientific commentary, however, (Powers, 2010), minimal organized research has been undertaken in regard to the concerns ICT users have in connection with the devices; these include adverse effects of cell phones on personal health and social interaction. This paper will address the above gap, by employing cross-cultural scientific data from multiple existing research reports.

Preview

While cell phones' origins go as far back as the fifties, the technology matured during the last decade of the twentieth century, with the advent of European Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) network, the emergence of numerous transmission networks in America, the Japanese launch of mobile phone operating company, NTT DoCoMo, and parallel growth in the remaining Asian countries, the Middle Eastern nations and the African continent (Ling & Donner, 2009). By the year 2009, nearly 4.7 billion cell phone subscriptions were noted around the world, which is inhabited by around 6.8 billion people. History abounds with cases of new technologies or products that were, at first, enthusiastically accepted, but subsequently proven to have unforeseen adverse effects. Mobile phone technology is also a bipolar example. Cell phones afford users immense freedom to interact with others on the terms they set themselves (with regard to time and place). Nevertheless, the reverse end of this Faustian deal is that individuals find they are always at others' beck and call, struggling against the apparent social requirement of always being available (Baron, 2008; Kahneman, Fredrickson, Schreiber & Redelmeier, 1993).

Wide variations in functionality and price can be observed in the cell phone models of today. Apart from voice and texting capabilities, a majority of cell phones offer features like address books, a camera, a calendar, several ring tones, alarm clock, as well as a radio or MP3 player. 3G smartphones offer video capabilities and access to the World Wide Web. Mobile technology has pervaded all age groups, cultural communities, and economic strata (Ling & Donner, 2009; Powers, 2010). Since their launch, however, cell phones have enjoyed particularly high acceptance among young adults and adolescents.

Review

Smith, Abadie, Isaak, and Senette investigated the impact of distractions from electronic communication in 2011, including texting and cell-phone demands, on false and true recognition, and in particular, semantically linked terms offered/not offered on a screen. Respondents were handed twenty four Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) records; concurrently, absence/presence of text-message and cell-phone distractions were manipulated in the course of study. In this paradigm, respondents examine lists of words that are semantically-linked (for instance, mother, diaper, and crib), associated with an absent critical lure (for instance, baby). There was no statistical variation in measures of false recognition across distraction situations. Signal detection studies revealed respondents better discriminating real targets (i.e., items from the lists presented in the course...

There was no significant variation in response bias across distraction situations, since no differences existed in the possibility of a respondent claiming that an item was "old" (i.e. presented earlier) and not "new" (i.e., not presented earlier). This research work's outcomes are scrutinized in relation to fuzzy trace models as well as activation monitoring (Smith et al., 2011; Kahneman et al., 1993).
Lopez-Rosenfeld, Garbulsky, Calero, Trevisan, Fernandez Slezak, and Bergman (2015) intended to quantitatively ascertain the expense of cell-phone interruptions during face-to-face meetings via an experiment conducted in dyads, among a vast audience during a TEDx gathering. The speaker vividly relates a tale, while the listener must intentionally ignore what the speaker is saying during some portion of the tale (by, say, paying attention to their phone). The speaker doesn't know of this inattentiveness. The researchers demonstrated, through this experiment, that the overall attention paid is a key factor that drives subjective beliefs regarding the tale as well as the speaker. The impacts are chiefly independent on the way attention is divided in time. With the exception of the tale's perceived emotion, every other social element of human interaction is impacted by the period of time the listener listens attentively. Disturbances in everyday interactions among colleagues are very common. Study data must offer an annotation of caution, by specifying that disturbances greatly affect the perception of individuals regarding what is said (i.e., whether or not it holds their interest) and the merits of individuals they come across (Lopez-Rosenfeld et al., 2015).

Gonzales (2014) assumed that significant social exchanges are positively linked to an increase in self-worth; in his view, this phenomenon principally remained unexplored in the digital media context in spite of the popularity of novel, text-based interactions (e.g. email, SMS, Facebook, etc.). Therefore, he attempted to focus on this literature gap. Communication quality, significance, and rate were assessed in non-mediated and mediated networks by employing experience sampling techniques over a random representative of 3649 exchanges. Study outcomes proved that a majority of communication occurred directly (62%). Text-based communication (approximately 22%) and voice communication via mobile phones (14%) were less common modes. Meaningful text-based communication and interactions in person were linked to self-esteem changes, as per a significant and marginally significant result, respectively. Phone-based or direct interactions were less vital for self-worth than text-based interactions; this outcome is in line with studies regarding the latter channel's enhancing impact on social processes. As per the hypothesis of web-enhanced self-disclosure, text-based interactions' psychological advantages arise from improved self-disclosure; this is supported in data, as well. Further research is required for acquiring a keener grasp of the mechanisms that underlie positive association of self-esteem with meaningful text-based communication. Nevertheless, findings indicate the key contribution of digital exchanges to psychological well-being.

Misra, Genevie, Yuan, and Cheng conducted a research in 2014 to explore the link between quality of face-to-face, social communication and presence of cellular devices. Through their naturalistic field research, they discovered that exchanges, which transpired when cellular devices were absent, were much more superior to those taking place when mobile devices are present in the setting. Individuals conversing when mobile devices weren't in the vicinity reported greater empathetic concern, while conversations when cellular devices were present revealed lower empathy levels (Misra et al., 2014).

Weinstein and Przybylski, in their 2012 work, arrived at similar outcomes, proving that the existence of cellular devices in community settings disrupted human relationships. The authors, in two distinct tests, discovered proof of the fact that mobile devices negatively influence bonding, understanding, and quality of discussion; this is particularly observed when people participate in personally significant talks. While a majority of studies have revealed the adverse impact of modern technology on direct, interpersonal communication, one research indicated that use of mobile phones in public may make people more prone to conversing with unfamiliar individuals (Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012).

Kwak and Campbell (2011) analyzed how and whether mobile interactions affected the level of engagement of people in direct conversation with strangers in public places. By considering different kinds of applications of mobile phones, this study discovered that cell phone usage in public did, in fact, trigger conversation with unfamiliar individuals, for users who often depend on mobile phones for acquiring and exchanging news.

Van Valey and Brignall (2005) studied technology's impact on modern-day cyber-youth -- the children who grew up using the World Wide Web as a key…