Newsweek: How The Cell Phone Is Changing The World

[Hissyspit]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/10/how-the-cell-phone-is-changing-the-world.html

How the Cell Phone Is Changing the World

The impact of the ubiquitous device extends from politics to business, medicine, and war.

by Ravi Somaiya
November 10, 2010

The modern mobile-phone era dates back only to the 1970s. In just 40 years, in the West, they’ve gone from suitcase-size novelty to ubiquity. And they’re no longer just luxury goods. More than 4 billion of the 6 billion people on earth now have a cell phone, with a quarter of those owners getting one in just the last two years. And many are using them, in a giant global experiment, to change the way life is lived, from Manhattan to Ouagadougou.

The phones now allow Masai tribesmen in Kenya to bank the proceeds from selling cattle; Iranian protesters to organize in secret; North Koreans to communicate with the outside world; Afghan villagers to alert Coalition soldiers to Taliban forces; insurgents to blow up roadside bombs in Iraq; and charities to see, in real time, when HIV drugs run out in the middle of Malawi.

“I was actually sitting around with a bunch of Ethiopian farmers recently,” says Duncan Green, research director for the charity Oxfam, “when I noticed that none of them had light or running water, but each family had a mobile phone.” The reasons are simpler than we think, he says. “Before, these farmers, if they wanted to check on a sick relative elsewhere, had to walk three hours in each direction. Now they just make a call.” That convenience, he says, drives their eager embrace of the phones. But the phones’ growing ubiquity—“they’re a technological Coca-Cola,” Green says—has other uses, too. Here are five ways they’re changing the world.

Exposing Secrets

On the Chinese border with North Korea, human-rights activists have a mission. They aim to persuade the few North Koreans allowed to travel outside the country to smuggle cell phones back in, and help open the most closed society in the world. (Mobile phones are officially allowed, but are strictly limited in range and closely monitored.) If discovered with their smuggled phones, the spies risk imprisonment and death, all in an effort to report on everything from pets to famine, and the swirl of story and counter-story that manages to penetrate dictator Kim Jong-il’s wall of silence. One such person, The New York Times reports, was executed by firing squad when authorities discovered his cell phone.

Advancing Democracy

Cell phones present a problem for oppressive regimes everywhere. So many Iranians were using text messages to secretly organize protests against last year’s flawed elections thatthe government eventually shut down service entirely. The Finnish company Nokia Siemens was criticized by the European Parliament for providing the government the equipment to do so. China presumably has its own capability: when prominent democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, messages containing the Chinese characters for his name failed to send, reported the Associated Press. Unbowed, his supporters continue to make their voices heard in the West. By cell phone, of course. In Africa, Green says, people are able to report violent incidents and government oppression in a way they couldn’t before. “It’s kind of the first time they’ve had bottom-up democracy,” he says.

MORE

[KharmaTrain]

1. Welcome To The Convergence World

...and it'll all the in the palm of your hand. New "smart" phones on 4G systems will put more IPads, IPods, Blackberries, Zunes and a new generation of devices in almost everyone's hand. Want the latest news? Check DU? Spew on Twitter? Yak on Skype? Listen to radio or watch tv...it's right there. The wireless barriers will come down yet we'll be more wired than ever.

There's no doubt technology is changing this world in many ways. I had a friend who was a journalist in Eastern Europe in the late 80s and claimed it was the Fax machine that brought down the Berlin Wall...or the role that the Internet has had on our own political systems. More people are wired in than ever and as the technology gets faster, cheaper and more accessible, the more people will be connected. It truly is a fascinating time.

While there are those that fear about net neutrality...and for good reasons, the Internet has grown on such a scale and sophistication that its bypassed the firewalls that used to exist. Repressive regimes may try to restrict access, but there are too many holes in the system and new ones being created. The revolution may not be televised, but it sure will be Tweeted.

[lunatica]

2. The cell phone got Obama the youth vote

If you go on public transit fellow travelers are either snoozing or texting or plugged into their iPods. Every person is in their own bubble.

But if the bus breaks down or the train needs to be evacuated then everyone starts talking to each other. I had to evacuate the subway train and it was kind of refreshing to see people talk to each other, even if was to complain.