Use of Cell Phone in China

Keywords: Social media, developing country, cell phone, applications

Abstract: With the advancement of technology in the 21st century, cell phones have now become
the integral part of daily life. For most of the population in many developing countries,
cellphones are just a medium of being connected to the social network of family and friends,
playing some innovative games or capturing some good pictures of their colorful life. However,
many people are unaware of the fact of how powerful or even harmful can a cellphone be in
todays world. This essay tries to relate the use of cell phone in a developing country like Nepal
and China which is one of the fast developing countries. The facts are mainly based upon
personal experience as well as some of students in my university in China, some of my country
mates in Nepal and a friend from USA. The aim is to compare the use of cell-phones in different
places.

Introduction: In April 1973, Motorola engineer Marty Cooper made the first call from a real
handheld portable cell phone, a point he made very clear during that historic conversation with
Joel Engel, the head of rival research firm Bell Labs. The world was not quite ready for the
iPhone when it was unveiled in 2007. Apple founder Steve Jobs launched the all in one digital
music player, camera, and Internet-enabled PDA device, and the rest is history. App-enabled
smartphones took over the market after the release of iPhone. Googles open sourced Android
platform made it even easier with the user friendly services at cheaper price. From then, there has
been a revolution in how a cell phone is seen by an individual, by the service providers and the
manufacturers. This document mainly talks about the perspective of the use of cell phone
describing how it is used in Nepal and how is it used in China, the advantages of the use and
disadvantages as well.

Smartphones are being used in almost all part of the world replacing the old analog cell phones.
Almost each and every person living in Nepal now carries a smartphone with Google based
Android applications. When you buy a cell phone in Nepal, you have no options other than the
Google phones for Android models, though iPhones are equally popular, but due to the price
difference in the cell phones, Android phones are easily available at cheap price. Among the
several cell phone brands Huawei and Xiaomi are the new emerging top brands preferred by the
users. But these cell phones too come with the built in Google system applications. China on the
other hand is the country with maximum number of cell phones being used in the whole world.

As a foreigner in China, with the first visit, anybody new gets totally confused with the use of
cell phones here. Getting a new sim card is easy as a student and from then every moment of
your life starts getting into the cell phone as the cell number as your identity. The main problem
is with the default Google applications, as the firewall of the internet system in China blocks the
use of many sites including Gmail, Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Under this circumstance
you are either compelled to get a new phone or make use of some other services to get some
other play stores installed in your cell phone, so that you can start using the Chinese applications
instead of all the other applications that you used before. There are other ways to make the cell
phones work with the firewall blocked applications as well but they are considered to be out of
the law as well as they are not as easy and as fluent as they work out of China. After you make
your cell phone work with different applications, life in China gets in a different way than
expected.

Social Networking: If we are to talk about cell phones, then in todays world the social
networking would be the number one thing to do. Facebook is the number one application now
used in Nepal for the social networking purpose. With the user friendly user interface people are
able to share their ideas, photos, videos, etc. or like and comment on someone elses ideas,
photos, etc. June, a young teacher in Fujian province in China shares her view as, when I was
studying in Hongkong I used Facebook, but now when I am here in mainland, I do not use it
anymore. Jenny, a student in Huazhong University of Science and Technology says, I have
heard a lot about Facebook, but have never used it or made an account in it. China, on the other
hand has developed its own mobile applications for the use of social networking. WeChat, QQ
messenger, Weibo are some popular ones. As major applications, Facebook and WeChat have
been compared here. Facebook is comparatively more open while WeChat is more private. When
you message someone in Facebook, it allows you to see if the receiver has seen your message or
not, which in case of WeChat is not displayed. This issue may appear as a minor thing to know
but can have serious effects on users. Why would I want somebody to know that I have seen the
message the particular person sent me? I may be a friend to add him/her on Facebook, but I have
no privacy regarding seeing the message and its time. Similarly, when you make some post on
Facebook, your friends who are not mutual friends with you can see each others comments and
react to it as well, which in case of WeChat is limited. Asmita, a student in China from Nepal
speaks, In case of privacy matters, WeChat is better and talking about user interface, Facebook
is better. The function of WeChat with options for user to do many using a single application is
the magnificent feature. The relationship Chinese developed on the chat rooms of the Internet are
often materialized in real world with the assistance of mobile phone communications for the
mobile phone is able to create personal space even in the presence of spouse (Yang, Gai and Li,
2007). A stable family with low social mobility is the cornerstone of the traditional Chinese state
(Yang, 2007)

Online Shopping: Kuaidi, a very popular word used by Chinese people as well as many
foreigners in China. People running day and night on their motorbikes to deliver the goods that
costumers had purchased online, is one of the usual sights in China. Shopping applications like
Taobao, JD.com, etc. are the most convenient way for shopping in china using mobile
applications sitting in own room. Such convenient service in China has brought a revolution in
shopping. In developing country like Nepal, there are websites to offer online shopping and some
people do it too, but for most of the population market shopping is convenient. Another
advantage of online shopping is that one can compare items at different places with their quality
and prices. Alan, student from Dominican Republic explains, Online shopping is really fun and
convenient in China, I enjoy shopping online.

Money Transactions: Walk in the streets of China in the evening, eat some real good foods and
look in your purse, you find you have no money. No problem, scan the QR code of Alipay or
WeChat and transfer the money to the owner. This is another fun part in China as compared to
my country. This has made the consumers as well as lot of street food sellers very easy to run
business without worrying about the paper money or any other card system. Sebak, an immigrant
to USA from Nepal explains, There are shops where we can use cards and do shopping, but its
not as simple as it is in China. Money transaction in Nepal is all done by hand whether its
about transactions in Bank or payment to anything. Some banks have their own system
applications to let users to do the transactions but still the population doing online transaction is
very much limited. From the use of cell phones for transactions, we can send or receive money
anytime anywhere, the cost for printing the paper money is saved as well. In Nepal time of many
population is spent for the transactions of money at Banks, etc.

Naviagtion: One of the major use of cell phones in todays world is navigation. GPS service in
cell phones and internet accessibility from the mobile phones enable people to find any place
they want to be and determine the routes to reach the desired places. For most of the countries
outside China Google map is the most convenient navigation application. But it is not used in
any other developing country like the way navigation application is used in China. The
transportation system in Nepal has not been updated with the software, so we may get to use the
navigation software to see the routes and maps but will not be able to find the right vehicles by
means of cell phones. In case of China, the navigation system of Baidu is quite convenient as
well as reliable for many foreigners as well as the Chinese people. It helps travelers to plan
anything according to the travel time.

Use of services: This implies the use of cell phones for services like booking hotels, buying
tickets for planes or trains or any other means, finding a taxi to go anywhere, finding a nearby
restaurant to eat, play online games, listen online music, watch movies and so on. The use of
such services has been extensively done in china. Local government in Nepal developed a
mobile application to collect the garbage from different places based upon the information
provided by the users. This technique was a great work done by the municipality office, but it
could not meet the expectation of the developers in reality, says Uttam Pudasaini, the android
application developer for Kathmandu municipality.

User Behavior: User behavior describes about the use of cell phones and the current
circumstances. Whether it is a train or a bus or any other public places people these days are
seem to be busy with their cell phones every time. Compared to my country, people mostly use
cell phones in their leisure times. During eating, travelling or attending a class, people are rarely
attached to their cell phones. This context in case of China is different, most of the time young
people seem to be obsessed with their cell phones. In the class room or in the cafeterias most
students are seen busy with internet. Many of the Chinese people are seen talking a lot in their
cell phones while driving. Many driving simulator studies have shown that cellphone use while
driving greatly degraded driving performance (Huimin Xiong, 2014).
Conclusion: Use of cell phones for different purposes have changed aspect of a person from
mentally as well as physically. Social media has transferred how traditional media is used and
viewed in China and even rest of the world. Cell phones with the popular applications have been
useful to make daily life more and easier. Time when you had to walk on your feet to go
somewhere and do the work has been put now in a cell phone. Cell phone applications can be
brought into use by the government authorities to describe the administrative processes and
provide some services as well. My country has so much to learn and bring advancement in the
way cell phone is being used. Cell phone in my country at present state is mainly used for social
networking and entertainment. Specific uses for making daily life comfortable has not been
much into practice. Many of the Nepalese people started using WeChat only after some of their
family member went China for higher studies and yet they find it boring. But as for the people
who explore it more have found it quite useful and different from others. To make a proper use of
technology what is already present is a good example that many developing countries should
imitate from China.

References
Huimin Xiong (2015). Examination of drivers cell phone use behavior at intersections by using
naturalistic driving data. University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, United
States of America.

Li huang, Wei Lu (2016). Functions and roles of social media in media transformation in China:
A case study of @CCTV NEWS. China Central Television, Research and Development Centre.
Beijing, China.

Yungeng Xie, Rui Qiao, Guosong Shao, Hong Chen (2016). Research on Chinese social media
users communication behaviors during public emergency events. Shanghai Jiao tong University,
East China Normal University, China.