Intro + Review + Research Methodology

The following essay is going to cover the usage and history of mobile phones, also covering their effect on society both negative and positive. The following essay will also give us a briefing on the term society/ community and the term effect.

Introduction

In-order to understand the task at hand in full depth and from all available angles it was vital to break down the topic into different segments. The topic is “Mobile phones and their effect on community”. The way in which this task was broken down is as following:

The term ‘Community’ –

• Clear understanding of the term

Mobile phones:

• History

Brief history of the mobile phone

According to the BBC article released on the 3rd of July 2003, the first mobile phone was released in the year 1983 by Motorola which was known as the ‘‘DynaTAC 8000X’’ invented by Dr Martin Cooper in 1973 and was approved to be the first commercial phone on September 21st 1983. It was limited in terms of connectivity and on average cost $3995.

References:
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1082521

Society

According to the Cambridge online dictionary Society is defined as a large group of people who live together in an organized way, making decisions about how to do things and sharing the work that needs to be done. All the people in a country, or in several similar countries, can be referred to as a society.

References:
• http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=75403&dict=CALD&topic=wealthy-people.

Literature Review

Mousavy SJ, Riazi GH, Kamarei M, Aliakbarian H, Sattarahmady N, Sharifizadeh A, Safarian S, Ahmad F, Moosavi-Movahedi In the international journal of micro molecules posted in April 2009 argued that the widespread use of mobile phones increased the human exposure to electromagnetic fields. It was required to investigate the effect of electro magnetic fields on the biological systems. In this research the effect of mobile phones on structure and function of biological systems was investigated. Oxygen affinity was measured by sodium dithionite with UV-vis spectrophotometer. Structural changes were studied by circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy. The results indicated that mobile phone electro magnetic fields altered oxygen affinity.
Blakemore in an article published for the BBC health section on March 1, 1999 said, ‘‘there was growing evidence that mobile phones could affect the functioning of the brain’’. He said, ‘‘there are other reasons not to use mobile phones, such as cost and annoyance to other people’’ Blackmore the phones were also placed close to areas in the brain that regulated short-term memory, as well as areas that controlled heart function and blood pressure.

References:

• BBC News report on effects of mobile phones March 1. 1999
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/288245.stm
• Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Iran. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19263507?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=2.

Research methodology

For this essay the use of the internet was vast for majority of the research e.g. using sources like the BBC, Cambridge etc also not forgetting a few texts that were picked up from the newspapers and magazines on technology.
The main reason behind the use of these mediums for researching was based on the aim to find out the difference of all the data which was coming from all the different sources and also to ensure that the data was correct and not biased.

The sources that used for this essay were all secondary sources and were not first hand experience, all articles and press releases under the technology and science research. One of the sources that were influential for this essay was the Jane Vincent, Leslie Haddon and Lynne Hamill article on ‘The influence of mobile phones The Journal of the Communications Network October.2005’ which was posted online thus online resources seemed as the best option.

General

There is little doubt that the development mobile phones has made a major on people’s everyday lives, but the question is always to what extent, in what way and at what level. At the same time, the ways that people are buy and use the new products and services has a particular impact on how much of the technology is actually advanced. Research that was carried out for the UMTS Forum published in 2003 and 2004 examined processes that contributed to the social shaping of 3G by exploring the current ways that people use mobile communications services.
One of the main finding was that mobile devices are in general not used to contact people the caller does not know but instead they enable more intensive relations with already existing contacts. People are using their mobile phones to talk and text people they already know and these are mainly for social purposes e.g. communicating with friends and family keeping up with the action, etc.
In this sense, mobile phones are essentially personal devices, sustaining personal lives and commitments. The slow take-up of data services demonstrates that person-to-person functionality is valued more highly than person-to-information functionality. The mobile phone has become so closely associated with friends and family and with social connectivity that it has become necessary and for some too valuable to lose. Vincent, J. and Haddon, L. Report 34 for UMTS Forum, 2004

Reflection on mentoring

Reflection on Mentoring

Starting university can be quite difficult, but having a mentor guiding me through, came to me as not a luxury but as a necessity. Having an idea on the outline of the course is only part of the equation, as without the expertise of my mentor I would have been lost. I feel so fortunate that my old college teacher has helped me adjust and get a clear understanding of certain work and what is required of me as a university student. As someone who had no real previous experience on a full Business IT course, my mentor helped me in getting to know and understanding the basic concepts of the course and adjust to the vast amount of work which I was required.