The number of active mobile phones in Poland currently stands at as many as 58.84 million.
That is more than the population of our country, which means many of us use more than one smartphone — and that number keeps growing. We stare at screens virtually nonstop. Until recently, we used our phones to send text messages and make calls. Today, the available apps and the rich offer we get bundled with a phone make our possibilities almost limitless. It is worth considering, however, how mobile devices affect our lives and the building of genuine relationships with people. World No Mobile Phone Day, observed on 15 July, can be a good moment for that reflection.
Owning a smartphone became a kind of social and professional requirement years ago. We start every day with a phone — it is our source of knowledge about what is happening in the world; thanks to it we visit our favorite sites and check the weather. It is often the smartphone that is the basis for planning our day. Using a mobile phone, we most often check our first emails, take calls, check our calendars and routes to meetings, and in between we indulge in mobile pleasures. We spend entire days with these devices, often using them right up until we turn off the bedside lamp. How did it all begin?
A bit of history
Prototypes of phones operating on cellular telephony were already being developed in the 1940s and 1950s. They had little in common with today's smartphones, however — in size they were close to a suitcase and weighed nearly 110 lb (50 kg). The first mobile phones in the sense of handheld mobile devices began to be introduced to the market in the United States in the 1970s. In Poland, the first GSM networks appeared in the second half of the 1990s; back then we could buy our own mobile for around PLN 3,000, and the choice of models was far poorer than today. To make life easier for users of mobile phones, daily newspapers published educational series explaining how these personal phones worked. More and more of us understood this revolution, and in time we took to it like fish to water. Phones entered our lives permanently. So much so that we stopped imagining life without them. And then the smartphone appeared…
A pocket computer
The first smartphone was introduced to the market by IBM in 1993 and was called the Simon Personal Communicator. The word smartphone was first used officially only two years later. Visually, Simon did not resemble the devices we use today. Besides making calls and sending short text messages, it had a touchscreen, a calculator, email and even games. The first models with a color display hit the market under the Nokia banner in 2000. Interestingly, just 10 years later more than 500 million smartphones were being sold worldwide each year, and in the following years that grew successively (sometimes by nearly double year on year). The mobile revolution brought changes to our lives that have ultimately shaped most of our behaviors and habits today. We find it hard to imagine how our parents or grandparents arranged meetings without the ability to contact the other person by phone. The impact of mobile phones on our thinking, behavior and health is twofold. For most of us, however, when we think of smartphones, the first thing that comes to mind are the benefits of having mobile devices with us. But what is it really like?
A small thing — a big impact
The impact of phones on life is undeniably large. On the one hand, we encounter many conveniences, but there are also negative effects. It is said that these small devices cause problems in relationships with peers, mainly among older children and teenagers, due to living in a virtual world and using a smartphone too often. Frequent phone use can cause spinal curvature in young people, mainly in the cervical region, caused by excessively tilting the head downward. In addition, devoting too much time to mobile devices can create problems with concentration or distract attention (we are interested only in short content). Accident rates also increase, resulting from using smartphones while driving or caused by the carelessness of pedestrians.
- As a mobile operator, we try to make our users aware of the effects of using smartphones. World No Mobile Phone Day, observed again on 15 July, prompts us to reflect. Last year we organized a special campaign in Wrocław in which we designated two pedestrian traffic lanes on Świdnicka Street in Wrocław. One of them was for passersby who walk along the promenade staring at their smartphone, the other was for those who keep their phone in their pocket. In addition, the Vikings present during the campaign encouraged people to choose the “no smartphone” path and explained why it is worth looking up on that day. Phones are our industry, our life; we do not demonize them — we just want users of our network to use the offered conveniences consciously. As we all know, nothing is good in excess — says Bartek Grabowski, Chief Marketing Officer at Mobile Vikings Polska.
Three generations in one place
Today society is divided into several groups — the first consists of people who grew up in a world without the internet and mobile phones and to this day do not find them essential for functioning. Most often this is our grandparents' generation. There are also people who experienced each of these realities. The youngest among us were raised in a world of new technologies — this is the generation for which giving up digital conveniences is hardest. Soon we will be dealing exclusively with representatives of this generation. Over the years, many terms have developed to describe this last group. Thumb generation, the generation of bowed heads, the (now outdated) 160-character generation, or smartphone zombies (“smombies”) are just some of them. The latter term describes pedestrians who walk slowly and without much attentiveness because they are focused on a smartphone. Under the law of some cities, such a person creates a real threat in road traffic. In Chongqing in central China and in Antwerp, there is a permanently designated route for “smombies” so that they do not create a threat to other pedestrians. In the German city of Augsburg, however, the city built special traffic lights placed on the road so that people staring at their smartphones can also see the red light.
3/4 of the population has mobile phones
Mobile phones are already used by 66% of the population2. Almost half of us, as many as 46%, connect to the internet via mobile devices. According to research conducted by CBOS3, the function of mobile phones we use most often is making calls, followed by sending and receiving messages and taking photos.
The study shows that smartphone users are predominantly people aged 18 to 44. Owners of only classic mobile phones are most often people aged 45 and over — they use the phone exclusively for calls. The youngest users make the greatest use of the phones' other capabilities. Among the most frequently downloaded mobile applications in December 2016 were Google, Youtube, Messenger, Facebook and Google Maps. According to POLSKA.JEST.MOBI research4, smartphone use takes its users just under three hours on average. Women devote less time to it than men. Men spend about 2.75 hours a day on mobile, and women — an average of 2.5 hours. Interestingly, for both women and men the intensity of smartphone use drops on weekends, while the main increase in time spent on mobile occurs right after arriving at work and after finishing work, between 7 and 8 p.m.
According to the latest report by the Office of Electronic Communications, the revenue of the telecommunications industry in Poland amounted to PLN 39.47 billion in 2016, which means a slight decline of not even 1%. Currently, the importance of modern internet access lines, mainly mobile, and services sold in bundles is growing for the value of the sector, while the landline phone is disappearing from homes at an accelerating pace. In turn, operator Play Communications reports that last year companies operating in the mobile telephony segment recorded PLN 26.2 billion in revenue (five times more than landline operators), and in the last three years their operating revenue grew by an average of 4 percent each year. Mobile internet access is a service that does not stop generating revenue. According to data from the Digital in 2016 report prepared by We Are Social, Poland is a very active country when it comes to internet use — as many as 67% of us have access to it. For comparison, in the USA it is 86%, and in China 49%. Poland ranks high, in 6th place, in terms of the share of mobile internet traffic. As many as 51% of visited websites were viewed on smartphones and tablets. First place with 82% was taken by Nigeria, and the global average is 39%.
The history of mobile phones is relatively short, but it is certainly extremely dynamic. Looking at the above examples, we can also notice that this changing reality has a huge impact on our lives — and in many ways. It is therefore worth taking a moment to consider what impact mobile devices have on our lives — especially on 15 July, World No Mobile Phone Day.
