The History of Cell Phones

By Andrew Auton & Patrick Smith

It can be said that cell phones have taken over our lives in today’s world. As a culture we have become used to relying on our phones for almost everything in our lives. Whether it be communication, looking things up on the internet, or just playing games our phones have become a huge part in our lives and in our culture. Mobile phones have evolved from something that was once for the wealthy, to something that everyone owns and uses on a daily basis. If you walk around campus today, you can see many young adults with their heads down in their phones. The phones we use today have made our lives easier in almost every aspect. This, however, is not necessarily a good thing. Kids are becoming more dependent on mobile technology and less on real world skills. If there is ever a mass malfunction with the servers around the world and cellular services become unavailable they will not know what to do. Another problem with this is that you see less and less pay phones in smaller cities that get poor reception. Phones come in many varieties and prices to fit anyone. Over 50 percent of people worldwide are estimated to have a mobile phone of some kind. More people own a smartphone than toilets are owned in a household. This shows how smartphones have such an impact on the world. A lot of the cell carriers let you buy a smartphone and pay it off monthly, and that allows more people to be able to get one. That is not how they make their money though. They decide to offer the phones in plans where you pay for more than what you need such as all the extra data you have at the end of the month. They offer deals where you pay less money for more data for the first month or two and then they raise your bill and you feel overcharged. The first mobile phone was created in 1973 by Motorola. Motorola’s first commercial phone, however, was released in 1983 at the cost of $3995. Not very many people could have been expected to purchase a $4000 phone, except only the upper class. Cell phones today are everywhere, including in every social class. Cell phones also are sometimes used to categorize us. The nicer and more expensive the cell phone, the more wealthy we are portrayed to be. Huge companies such as Apple and Samsung rely on our culture to keep them going by buying phones that are more expensive by the year. The bigger these companies get, the more they will influence us to buy a new phone when the new ones are released. Apple’s educational promotion at the end of summer is a way they urge you to buy their devices. They want college students to buy a new phone so they offer a discount on the device and also throw in a free gift such as a pair of Beats headphones. This draws in the students in and apple make more money. They will produce a new phone the next year, offer it to students and then repeat it. Smartphones have become more of a money maker than a necessity. They have affected society in ways that were not imaginable 40 years ago. Some for good and some for worse. Regardless, technology of cell phones will continue to grow. There is no stopping it.