The Popularity of the Smartphone Technology - Essay Example

For example, Putzer and Park (16) document how healthcare practitioners use smartphones to attend to their patients at whatever time and whatever location thus saving lives. The extended information processing functionalities of smartphones as documented by Osman et al. (275) enable the phone to be used to detect any dangers to human life such as earthquakes as discussed by Riley-Smith, thus improve on human safety. Finally, smartphones have improved economy of communities by creating job opportunities for application developers and providing a larger market for mobile devices as statistically documented by Evans.

Albeit various researchers have pointed out the benefits accruing from smartphone technology, there has been criticism of the negative impact of this technology on society. According to Cornell, high cost, distraction, typing difficulty, and compromised data security are among the limitations of smartphones. Putzer and Park (16) cite users’ discontent with smaller screen sizes of smartphones which jeopardizes readability. According to Ullman, the Internet has created “a world of little wordless pictograms” (640). . The Internet has indeed transformed the use of mobile devices, allowing for versatility and portability.

Smartphones, particularly, provide the capability to check emails, manage social accounts, and surf the Internet as noted by Ismail et al., thus allowing users to continue with their tasks wherever they go. However, Ullman (642) considers this as a killer to the art of communication in communities as users would be engaged in such activities most of the time. Whereas men have majorly been considered as being attracted to technology, Ismail et al. in their studies find out smartphone technology to be more popular among female healthcare practitioners.