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Literature Review for Cell Phones as an Artifact of Media

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Cell Phone As An Artifact of Media.

Introduction

The cell phone has been part of our lives in modern society; everyone depends

on it in almost whatever they do. As part of our social media, so many people have made so

many changes with the help of cell phones. As much as it has its significant importance, it has

affected part of society primarily. People have continued to witness the role of media in society

building. Media has continued to play substantial roles regarding information distribution,

consumption, and production to all ages of the human species. 6yuiuThe use of cell phones has

become very popular in our modern world; just like the other social media artifacts, it has helped

in the development and, at the same time, affected society in a negative way. People have

continued to use social media artifacts, but youths are more engaged with cell phones. The cell

phone is likely to influence the youth positively and negatively; the negative factors should be

given significant concern as they are likely to be destructive to their lives.

Background

New technology has marked great changes; before the introduction of the new

technology, people did not have easy access to cell phones and social media at large. Porter et al.

(2018) say that youths did not get much access to social media, the available social media

artifacts did not provide as much information as they do today. Poor prospects of employment

among the youth have continued to be the central concern. However, the concern has brought an

evidence on the role that mobile phones play in young people in creating ways for them towards

better livelihoods that are more secure. Many youths rely on social media, where they get the

latest information on job opportunities in the contemporary world compared to what people
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could do before technology. As a result, many are likely to engage themselves in different areas

at the same time, some of which are important, and others do not help them in any way.

Conceptual framework.

Changes taking place in the way cellphone has evolved and has been used is one of the key

concepts I considered in establishing why youths in our modern world are glued so much to

using cell phones.

Changes in the use and evolution of artifacts.

Today, the cell phone has become the most used social media artifact by the youth. A

study by Porter et al. (2018) shows that the number of subscribers has increased at a higher

percentage, marking mobile users' rise. The emergence of computing and communication for

mobile consumer devices is evolutionary to bring interoperability and influence the functions and

services in various organizations. The introduction of the smartphone came as a way of

improving the strategy of marketing; it referred to the new class of mobile phones whose

services like communication, messaging, voice communication, and personal information have

been integrated. Initially, smartphones were not easily affordable as they were costly, but in the

modern world, many changes have been observed, so many people can now afford to buy a

cellphone, leading to the increased popularity of smartphones in the general public. Earlier, cell

phones were only used as devices for enterprises and were primarily used for corporate users, but

after they reached the general public, they are now used for various number of operations.

Effects of cell phones on youths.

The effects of cell phones on youths are the other concept I found important for the study; the

concept will deal with factors that affect the youth because of too much use of cell phones,

including cyberbullying, health issues, destructive behaviors, and educational performance.

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Cyberbullying

So many young youths have been exposed to the use of cell phones; some of them may

not know how they can respond to some issues they are likely to come across on the internet.

Research suggests that those children that have phones are vulnerable to cyberbullying. As

presented by Labos C. (2019), cyberbullying was not high in the past, but as most of the youth

have evolved with the new technology, it has dramatically increased, this is because they are the

ones who are prone to be bullied while others are the ones carrying out the cyberbullying

practices. In recent years, cyberbullying resulting from cell phone usage has attracted much

attention in the United States. Internet is very overloaded with so many subscribers who use a

cell phone to send abusive texts, communicate threats as well as sending pictures that are

inappropriate, or even making harassing phone calls to people in order to upset or scare them.

Unfortunately, this vice has negatively affected the youth because they are the people who spend

much of their time online.

Impact of cell phone on Psychological Health

Regular use of cell phones by youths is likely to cause mental health issues like less life

satisfaction, psychological distress, anxiety, and less happiness. According to Lugulu (2021),

those teens that have phones spend much of their time sending messages instead of engaging

themselves in constructive things. This is likely to expose them to depression, anxiety, and

stress; this may, in turn, lead to an increased risk of mental health problems. However, lack of

sleep is another challenge; Lugulu (2021) argues that in most cases, teens keep their phones close

to them while they are sleeping to make it easier in responding to calls and texts and always be

available when they are called; this interrupts and disrupts their sleep as they wake up most of

the times to pick calls and respond to messages.

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The physical health of mobile users is likely to be affected by excessive exposure to cell

phones. BetterHealth. (2018) and Abi-Jaoude, et al. (2020) shows that the use of mobile phones

is not only affecting the mental health, but the physical health of the users is also at risk. It

should be understood that ionizing or non-ionizing electromagnetic radiations have the greatest

potential effect on developing cells that easily reproduce upon regenerating. Most of the youths

are spending most of their time on phones, and their age is likely to be less than 20 years are

prone to the effects of the radiations produced by cell phones because of their neuronal cells

compared to adults. According to Patel (2018), the best solution is using the phone for a limited

amount of time to avoid excess exposure and the potentially harmful effects on their health. A lot

of health issues are coming up as a result of excessive exposure to the use of mobile phones

among the youth and all the population at large.

Impact of cell phone on Education

Cell phones are very important to the students in our modern society, but it should be

made clear that the positive effects of using mobile phones are likely to be realized by those

students who do not spend so much time on them. Mobile phones have a number of educational

apps and websites that significantly help students in their learning. At the same time, there are

some websites that will attract the students to watch their content in an attractive way; this way,

the students are likely to use so much of their time on the internet, forgetting that they are

students and will be required to do much on their academic performance Alava et., al (2018)

show that a good number of those teen students using their cell are likely to spend much of their

time online browsing, which is expected to consume a lot of time for their of their learning

hours, leading to poor academic performance. However, some content from the internet may not

be helpful for their studies. According to Hurley (2020), some of these teens don’t look for what
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is educative to their lives, but they look for what seems to entertain them, making them lose

focus on their studies.

Impact of cell phones on the behavior of the youths

Young adults learn some destructive behaviors from some online platforms that they are

likely to get access through their moments of browsing. According to Labos (2019), some of the

youths are very young, cell phones expose them to some phonographic materials, and this creates

bad behavior at an early age. In our contemporary world, there are various websites that run

phonographic videos; however, most of the young youths are in the adolescent ages and may use

such websites to relieve their feelings; this leads to unethical behaviors to such youths at their

young age. Additionally, others expose them to terrorist activities. Lagudu (2021) argues that so

many terrorism activities have recently increased compared to when fewer people could access

social media networks. The use of cell phones in our modern society has helped in the

recruitment of young youths to some terrorist groups as well as dramatically improving the

ability of the terrorist to access and recruit young people in joining their groups.

Drug abuse has been a challenge among many youths, which they learn from their peers

as well as from the internet. In America, the ongoing drug abuse crisis has been contributed by

social media platforms. However, many people see that some of the online websites are marketed

as places of interaction with friends and family, safe and fun, these platforms are therefore seen

to be definitely good, but to some extent, it is very possible that some people use them in the

wrong and unexpected ways by using them to share propaganda related to drugs or to sell illegal

substances. Too much exposure to drug abuse is likely to lead to school dropouts among the

youths.

Conclusion.
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Conclusively, cell phones are neither good nor bad in the long run; it depends on how

people use them, which results in their impacts on the users. In the digital age, there are so many

advantages of using cell phones. Still, it is giving the young generation access to the toxic

environment of social media that is psychologically harming them. However, the internet cannot

be guarded in any way, and unfortunately, hateful things will continue to be done online by

hateful people. But there is always a solution for everything. We can keep our youths from

phones by giving them some other ways of exploring in an old-fashioned way among others. By

the fact that young youths appear uncontrollable, there are still successful ways in which they

can be accessed and advised accordingly before they are ruined by social media.
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References

Abi-Jaoude, E., Naylor, K. T., & Pignatiello, A. (2020). Smartphones, social media use, and

youth mental health. Cmaj, 192(6), E136-E141.

Alava, S., Frau-Meigs, D., & Hassan, G. (2017). Youth and violent extremism on social media:

mapping the research. UNESCO Publishing.

BetterHealth. (2018). Mobile phones and your health. Better Health Channel - Better Health

Channel. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/mobile-phones-and-

your-health

Hurley .K. (2020). Teenage cell phone addiction: Are you worried about your child? Psycom.net

- Mental Health Treatment Resource Since 1996. https://www.psycom.net/cell-phone-

internet-addiction

Labos C. (2019). Cell phones, teens, and mental health. Office for Science and Society.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-technology/cell-phones-teens-and-mental-health

Lagudu, S. (2021). 10 harmful side effects of mobile phones on teenagers. MomJunction.

https://www.momjunction.com/articles/side-effects-of-mobile-phones-on-

teenagers_00352682/

Patel N. (2018). Cell phone radiations and its effects in public health- comparative review study.

MOJ Public Health. https://medcraveonline.com/MOJPH/cell-phone-radiations-and-its-

effects-in-public-health--comparative-review-study.html

Porter, G., Hampshire, K., de Lannoy, A., Bango, A., Munthali, A., Robson, E., ... & Owusu, S.

(2018). Youth livelihoods in the cellphone era: perspectives from urban Africa. Journal

of International Development, 30(4), 539-558.