Mobile phone mania

By Sajitha Prematunge

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I remember how I felt when I lost my first mobile. I was devastated. It had an 0.3 mega pixel camera, video, an MP3, bluetooth, the whole nine yards. I simply kept refusing to buy a new phone, since I considered myself still in mourning, but was forced to buy one by my parents and boyfriend.

It was of course less sophisticated, with a VGA camera. But to my delight I have developed a new love for classical Sri Lankan music, since it has a radio and I upgraded it with a memory chip recently. And I have no doubt that there are many others, whose lives are irrevocably altered and to an extent even governed by mobile phones.

Although I knew that there were two sides to this story of ‘Mobile mania’, and have myself heard of a few who were so repelled by the ideas that they simply refused to ever use a mobile phone, the problem was I had no way of contacting them! and therefore no way of tracking them down. Unless I was willing to disturb them at night, the only period of time when they were home and contactable.

As for the mobile maniacs, some of them get so preoccupied with their mobile phones, that they find it difficult to concentrate on their daily activities. Some have reached the point of no return, when they are so dependant on the mobile phone that they cannot think straight without it.

The victims of this is mostly Teenagers. They either already posses the latest mobile phones or try to get their hands on them. The young people accessorise them with cell phone face plates, mobile phone body gloves, straps, antenna rings, photo stickers and fake gems.

The wife of an officer of the armed forces who bought his first mobile in 2005 says “I don’t know how he got by even that far without a mobile phone, compared to the number of phone calls he’s getting now.”

The trouble with having a mobile phone is that it’s truly mobile, leaving you little choice but answer when it rings - whether you are in a lecture, or a private romantic dinner - allowing 24 hour access to who ever wants to contact you.

Although I wouldn’t call myself a ‘mobile maniac’, I seem to be nonetheless suffering from some of these symptoms. I’m often disturbed while I am at lectures, at home, in the middle of the night.

Some intrusions are welcome while others are not. And the various unrelenting ring tones and the bleep bleeps drive me nuts when I am trying to meet a deadline.

Someone told me about a guy who woke up at twelve midnight just to talk to his girlfriend. The conversation would last well into the night and more often than not, into dawn, borrowing batteries from his roomies whenever his went dead. The low rates of off-peak often result in meaningless jabber between friends and lovers.

Dinesh Nanayakkara, a 42 year old, who has three phones, told the Sunday Observer that he likes facilities like text messaging, camera, and video in addition to making calls on the mobile.

“I am mad about mobile phones. It’s not just about texting and calling. I love reading about the latest models. I also read about the tariff structure. Stuff like what connections are cheeper during which time of the day.”

But he admits that no matter what kind of phone you ‘fall for’ at the end of the day it’s just a matter of dialling a number and making a call. When asked what he considered as the best thing about the mobile phone is, he said “You never lose mobility, but the worse thing is you have to tell your wife where you are.”

Another mobile phone user, Pradeep Dissanayake, told the Sunday Observer that although he does not go for the most sophisticated versions, he appreciates facilities like the organizer, alarm, reminder, recorder and camera. But he admitted that he mainly uses the mobile phone for texting.

“The best thing about the mobile phone is the “contactibility” he explained. “You can contact anyone in any part of the world anytime. But this in itself can be a draw back, when you don’t wish to be contacted.”

This article wouldn’t be whole without a fully fledged highly recommended mobile maniac. asked Kishani Weerawansa, a long term mobile phone addict, about her addiction. “I never switch it off until it turns off by itself.” She confesses that she turns it off only if she desperately wants to be left alone.

On average she says that she does not make many calls, but says that she tends to hang on for a long time. When it comes to personal calls, she admits that she feels more comfortable with her mobile phone than the office line. “Even at home I feel more comfortable with my mobile, because it gives me more privacy and I end up using the mobile more than the land line.”

A study has been conducted in UK, using three mobile addicts. They were persuaded to go a whole week without using their mobiles... Jon Evans, age thirty something, an Estate Agent, students aged seventeen Rhea Sturman and Liva Chann were the reluctant candidates. And all of them cracked within just days.

Jon’s mobile free week turned out to be a nightmare for him. Such is the level of the businessman’s dependency, that Jon Evans refused to go without his mobile phone for longer than one day. His secretary Sally Reed can’t believe that he agreed to go for a week, in the first place.

BBC had found a mobile phone hidden in his glove compartment and another in the drinks container. It’s said that Jon even tried to borrow a mobile from a passer by in the street as he didn’t have enough money for a pay phone. When he was asked whether he would do it again he said, “Definitely not!”

The mobile free week for the teenagers turned out to be ‘Teenagers trauma’. The two teenagers Rhia and Liva were left with a video camera to record their hopefully mobile-free week. And was also observed with a hidden camera just in case. By day two they were in utter distress. Rhea was caught using her mobile to text. “I know I was wrong”, she has said, “especially as I was sitting right next to a pay phone!”

Communications Psychologist Adam Joinson from the Open University in Milton Keynes has said that he wasn’t surprised to see Jon resorting to cheating. “For the business person the mobile has a material value as well”.

In consideration of all three cases he believes there is a “serious dependency”, with people suffering feelings of loss and alienation when deprived of their mobiles. Then again it’s better that young people spend their money on mobiles than drinking or smoking. (Source: Inside Out, BBC) But an even more interesting aspect of it is that, according to current research mobile phone usage is by no means restricted to the middle and upper classes.

The usage of mobile phones by people in the bottom of the pyramid, is on the rise. A documentary film - Teleuse@BOP - produced by TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP) for LIRNEasia, 2007; and supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, IDRC - highlights a new communication phenomenon, in Asia. The survey confirmed some known trends, while challenging conventional opinions on several aspects.

Tens of millions of Asians from low income backgrounds are getting phone connections, regularly using and, or owning telephones. According to this film, people at the bottom of the income pyramid are not different from anyone else, when it comes to using the good old mobile phone.

“They value the enhanced personal security, including emergency communications, and social networking benefits.” decided the survey. Increasingly, poor people are not contented with just using public phones or shared access phones. Using a LIRNEasia’s 2006 survey in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand, the documentary shows that when it comes to phone use, the poor are not very different from anyone else.

The survey, carried out with the market research company A C Nielsen, involved nearly 9,000 individuals covering both male and female, urban and rural alike. Most respondents were from households at the bottom of the income pyramid. (Source: TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP)

Some names have been changed