https://www.psychologytoday.

com/blog/mental-mishaps/201401/cell-phones-are-
changing-social-interaction

How much of your social life do you conduct through text messages? Do you schedule
face-to-face time? Do you track where your friends are by texting? Do you have
conversations with text messages?

Having a cell phone completely changed my social life. This is what my sons told me
after we finally got them cell phones when they were in high school. I also have a cell
phone, but don’t feel having it changed my social life. For my sons, however, the effect
was dramatic. Cell phones may be changing how people interact with each other and
changing their expectations for social interaction.

A recent set of research indicates that young people use their cell phones differently
than older adults use their cell phones. We have this belief that young people are
constantly using their cell phones – texting, checking email, searching the web, taking
pictures, and tweeting. Supposedly, older people use their cell phones less frequently.
But there is actually very little data on differences in how age impacts cell phone use
and beliefs about etiquette. With my colleague, Deborah Forgays, and one of our
students, Jessie Schreiber, we’ve recently published an investigation on how people
use their cell phones for social interaction and their beliefs about etiquette. The fun part
is that we looked at people in different age groups (18-24; 25-34; 35-49; and 50-68).

First the obvious finding. Age relates to big differences in how many text messages
people send and receive each day. Young adults rely on text messages but older adults
send and receive substantially fewer texts. In the over 50 group, more that 80 percent
send and receive fewer than 10 texts each day. But young adults are texting much more
every day. Interestingly, we found no difference in the number of cell phone calls made
and received. Nobody is making very many – over 90 percent in every age group made
fewer than 10 calls each day. The age difference in cell phone use is in texting.

Young adults also use text messaging as their primary method of contacting friends –
over 80 percent report texting as their preferred method. The percentage of people who
use texting as their primary method of contacting friends drops in older age groups.
Older adults (over age 50) prefer calling or email. Given the age difference in the
number of texts, it shouldn’t be surprising that younger adults believe it is more
appropriate to use their cell phones in a greater variety of situations than do older
adults. We asked about a lot of contexts – having dinner with friends, in line at the store,
in church, intimate situations, at the gym, having coffee with a friend. Across the board,
younger adults saw text messaging as more acceptable than older adults.

So the quick message is that younger adults are texting in more situations, using it to
contact friends, and see texting as acceptable.
This seems to be having an impact on their expectations in relationships. You’ve got to
feed the beast in text interactions with young adults. Young adults expect quicker
responses from friends than do older adults. By the way, we didn’t find any difference in
how quickly people expect responses from romantic partners – everyone expects a
response relatively quickly. So when you get a text from your partner, stop what you’re
doing and respond. Oh, and if you are slow to respond to young adults, they will get
irritated with you more quickly than older adults.

Young adults text more, use texts to contact friends, and expect quicker responses.
Younger adults also use text messages for a variety of functions in romantic
relationships. In particular, about 15 percent of young adults reported they had ended a
relationship via text message and 25 percent reported they had been dumped via text.
The percentage of text break ups dropped in older age groups and the over 50 crowd
never reported text dumps. We’ve always known that breaking up is hard to do – so why
not do it via text?

I think this may explain why young adults are so attached to their cell phones. This
isn’t addiction. This is social interaction. When you conduct your social life via text,
keeping track of your cell phone takes on particular importance. Older adults, like me,
shouldn’t make judgments about cell phone use in younger adults, or at least we should
withhold the negative evaluations of people constantly checking their cell phones.
Perhaps instead we can respect the cell phone and internet natives. These young
adults have grown up using cell phones and the internet. They’ve learned to effectively
maintain and enhance (and sometimes end) social relationships through the ether.
Maybe they will be more engaged with and attached to their social groups than older
adults who are still learning to keep in touch in the modern era.

https://journalissues.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Addo.pdf

Impact on society and social relationships

Mobile phones help to create an informative, connected, culturally innovative, participative, and
converging society and contributions to collective welfare of the individuals via social responsibility
(Harsha et al., 2011). Mobile communication has shown its power for collective activities as well as on
individual life. It can prevent isolating members from social connection and empower citizens through
convenience for connecting to others and availability of information and makes individuals to participate
in programs on TV, informing people and creating more equal society and convergence in terms of
bridging digital divide especially for geographically dispersed countries such as Brazil and India (Kushchu,
2007). It also increases social connections between different segments of the society creating equalities
and distribution of wealth as well as creating positive changes in the dynamics of the society which
involves contributions such as competence in communications, accessibility of information, socialization,
political and social union, youth and new culture (Kim, 2004). With the creation and accessibility of
mobile phones, more and more individuals own their own mobile phone and using them every day to
communicate within their social network. Mobile phones also make individuals available anywhere, and
anytime, which changes the way that individuals are choosing to interact in social settings with others.
The impact of mobile phone on our personal life include constant accessibility, emancipation, safety,
individuality, status and confidence, competence in communications, communications and
connectedness, amusing, confidentiality planned life, time management and helps individuals to remain
in close and instantaneous contact with members of their social network regardless of where they are in
the world. In addition to keeping up with social relationships, individuals have also been able to increase
productivity with their work because they can be hundreds of miles away from the office, and still have
instant access to their e-mail, documents and contacts wherever they are (Tully, 2003). Social
interaction signifies that people are aware of the existence of others, and also it implies active
engagement between two or more parties (Banjor, Hun, & Sundar 2007). Adolescents and young adults
have the desire to take risks with relationships, rules and roles (Leung, 2008) as individuals seek out
entertainment to avoid boredom at appropriate and inappropriate times. Many individuals believe that
they cannot imagine not having their mobile phone with them on a daily basis and this is exaggerated in
younger generations as they think that they cannot imagine themselves without their phones
(Thompson & Cupples, 2008). This shows how younger generation senses of self are tied up with this
technology. Individuals are attached to their mobile phones, which enables them to think that they
cannot function without their mobile phone on a day-to-day basis. There are many factors that lead to
mobile phone dependency and this include, leisure, boredom, sensation-seeking behavior, low self-
esteem, constant accessibility, emancipation, safety, individuality, status and confidence, competence in
communications, communications and connectedness, amusing, confidentiality, planned life and time
management (Thompson & Cupples, 2008). The applications and uses of mobile phones, drastically
impact on the personal lives of youngsters (Grimm, 2001). People are using smartphones and personal
digital assistants (PDAs) for an increasing number of activities and often store sensitive data, such as
email, calendars, contact information, and passwords, on the devices, the internet, GPS navigation,
mobile applications for social networking and keep a wealth of personal information as recent
innovations in mobile commerce have enabled users to conduct many transactions from their
smartphone, such as purchasing goods and applications over wireless networks, redeeming coupons and
tickets, banking, processing point-of-sale payments, and even paying at cash registers (Ruggiero and
Foote, 2011). Bayes, von Braun, and Akhter (1999), Goodman (2005), Frost and Sullivan (2006), and
Kwaku Kyem and LeMaire (2006) have shown how mobile phone adoption leads to greater social
cohesion and improved social relationships. One study found that, from 2009 to 2010, the number of
new vulnerabilities in mobile operating systems jumped to 42%. Mobile phone adoption appears to be
surpassing, on a worldwide basis, the popularity of TV sets as It is a technology that has been given
credit for saving lives, organizing terrorist efforts, and overthrowing dictators (Katz and Aakhus, 2001).

Negative impact of mobile phone on society and social relationships

As the constructive and positive impact of the cellphones there are negative ones also like, using mobile
phones for kidnapping and blackmailing, capturing blue films, images and capturing porn images. With
public invasion which means that you are invading into other’s personal spaces by talking out loud about
your own personal spaces coming off as inconsiderate and/or rude and links to isolation of oneself and
this has several repercussions. In answering the ringing mobile phone, the individual who is presently
being conversed with, has described feeling a sense of being left alone, which can cause social anxiety,
as well as bitterness/annoyance towards the individual who answered the phone call (Humphreys,
2009). There are situations where children especially youngsters neglect food, parents, relations, kith
and kin while using their mobile phones specially while texting (Nokia, 2002) and this drastically affects
their personal life. On the other hand there are many health hazards to which youngsters and children
become target. The radiofrequencies damage the tissues and genes of their young body very soon. The
negative impacts of mobile phones on the personal life and social lives of individuals collectively create
an average impression on the economy, wherein it suffers globally. Smartphones, or mobile phones with
advanced capabilities like those of personal computers (PCs), are appearing in more people’s pockets,
purses, and briefcases. Smartphones’ popularity and relatively lax security have made them attractive
targets for attackers (Panda Labs, 2011). Smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) give users
mobile access to email, the internet, GPS navigation, and many other applications. However,
smartphone security has not kept pace with traditional computer security. Technical security measures,
such as firewalls, antivirus, and encryption, are not common on mobile phones, and mobile phone
operating systems are not updated as frequently as those on personal computers (National Institute of
Standards and Technology, 2013). Mobile social networking applications sometimes lack the detailed
privacy controls of their PC counterparts. Unfortunately, many smartphone users do not recognize these
security shortcomings. Many users fail to enable the security software that comes with their phones,
and they believe that surfing the internet on their phones is as safe as or safer than surfing on their
computers (Trend Micro, “Smartphone Users, 2009). Meanwhile, mobile phones are becoming more
and more valuable targets for attack as people are using smartphones for an increasing number of
activities and often store sensitive data, such as email, calendars, contact information, and passwords,
on the devices and these may get into the hands of unscrupulous people. The number and
sophistication of attacks on mobile phones is increasing, and countermeasures are slow to catch up
(Cox, 2009).