The artifact that this paper will study is the use of cell phones and the effects that this use can be seen to have on contemporary social interactions. This form of social interaction lends itself to analysis both because the number of people who use such phones can be easily tracked, and also because a large degree of research has been done on cell-phone use, and especially on the effects that it has had with regard to social media technology.
The use of cell phones in contemporary society is extremely popular. Indeed, it is seemingly ubiquitous. Not only are the phones easy to come by, but their use can often be seen to mediate key aspects of social life. According to a recent study, 15% of Americans own and regularly use a smart-phone and this number increases dramatically amongst middle-class demographics, people under the age of fifty and college students (Smith, 2015). As well as this, as of 2014 it was estimated that at least 64% of Americans own some kind of phone and use it regularly (2014, PRC). As such, it can clearly be argued that any issues affecting cell phone users effect a very large number of people, and that this number is only likely to increase in the future.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Cell Phones: Cultural Artifact Essay".
The specific forms of social interaction made possible by smart-phones are focused around social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook. Over 85% of people who regularly use the internet under the age of twenty five use these websites in order to coordinate their social interaction (PRC, Jan 2014). Given the large role that such media plays in the lives of young people, then it is clear that its effects should be of interest to all members of society, not least because these people are the future of society itself and, as such, whatever affects them will affect the future of every person in the world.
The specific nature of the interactions associated with social media is contentious, and has been argued to possess both positive and negative connotations. For example, even nine years ago studies were arguing that continuous exposure to the internet and social media through smart-phones has a retarding effect on the brain and is causing a fundamental change in the way in which people perceive reality (Small, 2007). More recently authors have noted that exposure to social media actually means that people live vicariously instead of experiencing life for themselves. Indeed, Jessica Rosenberg (2015) argues that not does Facebook turn people into observers of their own, and their friends, lives, but it can also create a false sense of intimacy that is ultimately unsatisfying. With regard to this feeling, it is important to note that the youngest generation who currently uses Facebook and social media have never known life without it. As such, their understanding of social interaction is entirely mediated by the social networking technology and the kinds of interaction that it normalizes.
Despite this experience of potential loneliness, however, it is important to note that smart phones and social networking have led to literally revolutionary ways of communicating and organizing These forms are predicated on the alienating effects of social media, but also show how these effects may be used to discover new forms of community. When speaking the Arab Spring uprisings in favour of Democracy, Paul Mason (2012) notes that the capacity to organize with social media and to spread messages of discontent was a crucial, and new element of social organization (p. 80). Likewise, Osman (2014) notes in Egypt that the availability of social media technology “enabled large scale meetings and demonstrations to be co-ordinated and organized in next to no time and with little need for advanced planning” (p. 880). Therefore, rather than negatively effecting people’s intelligence, social media can be shown to have positively accentuated it.
As such, it is clear that it would be wrong to simply analyze the effects of social-media and of the constant availability of internet access as being simply a retarding factor for the people who use it. Rather, it is also clear that this technology can provide new and exciting ways for collective intelligence to form and to express itself. While the full effects that social media will have on the world are not yet clear, what is clear is that these effects will surely contain both of these positive and negative elements, and that, at some point or other, they will affect almost everyone on the planet.
- “Mobile Technology Fact Sheet.” (2014). Pew Research Center. Web. 27Th January, 2016.
- “Social Networking Fact Sheet.” (January, 2014). Pew Research Center. 27Th January, 2016.
- Mason Paul. (2012). Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. Verso: London.
- Osman, Wazhmah. (2014). “On Media, Social Movements, and Uprisings: Lessons from Afghanistan, Its Neighbours, and Beyond.” Signs 39.4 : 874-887.
- Rosenberg, Jessica. (2015). Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” Huffington Post. Web. 27Th January, 2016.
- Small, Gary, W. (2007). “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation During Internet Searching.” AMJ Geriatr Psychology. 17 (12). 116-140.
- Smith, Allen. (2015). “U.S. Smarphone Use in 2015.” Pew Research Centre. Web. 27Th January, 2016.
