Mobile Phone Consumption Research Articles

Deteriorating Distance: Impact of Mobile Phones on Interpersonal Relationship between Parents and Teenagers

Mobile phone use among teenagers has increased since the COVID–19 pandemic in Sri Lanka. This research seeks to find out how mobile phones affect the interpersonal relationship between parents and teenagers. Data for the questionnaire was collected randomly from 240 respondents based on three ethnicities in Niwithigala Divisional Secretariat of Ratnapura District, Sri Lanka. Social exchange theory was used as the theoretical framework for the study. According to the findings of the present study, teenagers are most motivated to use mobile phones for online education in a limited period of four years, from 2020 to 2023, in Sri Lanka. Teenagers consume mobile phones as heavy users to entertain, educate and for gaming. Parents consume 1-2 hours daily, and their main purpose is to communicate with children and others. Male teenagers spend more time on their mobile phones than female teenagers. It is found that both parents and teenagers have different perceptions of the impact of mobile phones on their lives. Teenagers strongly believe that mobile phones are essential devices for their daily activities. Teenagers believe that mobile phones are a better way to socialize, whereas parents do not agree that mobile phones are a socializing tool. On the other hand, in families with limited phone use or no phone use, the interpersonal relationship between parents and teenagers is more intense. The majority of the respondents, both parents and teenagers, faced misunderstanding because of excessive use of mobile phones, and they cleared up the misunderstanding by meeting the person physically. While the majority of both parents and teenagers strongly agreed with the statement that mobile phone consumption creates distance in the family, a few of them think that mobile phones do not cause distance in the family. The main finding of the study is that due to the excessive use of mobile phones by teenagers, the frequency and quality of communication among family members are affected, and so the interpersonal relationships between parents and teenagers become detached.

Conspicuous Consumption of Mobile Phones among Sri Lankan Managers

Conspicuous Consumption of Mobile Phones among Sri Lankan Managers

Studies on Acidic Leaching of Waste Mobile Phones

The consumption of mobile phones is increasing day by day and the replacement speed is also accelerating. Thus, a lot of old mobile phones and their parts need to be processed. Mobile phones contain more than 40 elements and/or materials. This experimental study aims to establish the possibilities of recovering valuable metals from waste mobile phones by using acidic leaching. The process steps include dismantling of waste mobile phones, pre-processing to liberate the materials, and directing them to final treatment processes. Prior to leaching tests, the PCBs of waste mobile phone sample are chemically analyzed and its metal contents are found as 33.22% Cu, 9.42% Fe, 1.86% Zn, 2.77% Ni, 1.63% Al, 0.4% Pb, 0.02% Co, 0.14% Ag, and 251.2 ppm Au. In the leaching experiments, sulfuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids are used. In the sulfuric acid leaching experiments, effects of acid concentration, temperature, hydrogen peroxide addition, and leaching periods on metal dissolution efficiencies are investigated. Results are compared and discussed in relation to the types of acids. XRD analyses of feed material and leach residues are also carried out. As a result of this experimental study, 97.9% Fe leaching in 8 M H₂SO₄ solutions, 89% Pb, 100% Ni, 90.4% Co, and 4.1% Cu leaching in 1M HNO₃ solutions, 100% Pb, and 100% Al leaching in 4 M HCl solutions in one hour are found. In conclusion, sequential leaching with different acids is recommended for the effective leaching of all metals.

The Impact of the Digital Economy on Industry's Green Transformation

In recent years, my country's economic development has changed from the pursuit of high speed to the purpose of high quality. Industry's green transformation is an urgent need for my country's economic growth. Based on the panel data of 287 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2019, this paper uses the entropy method to analyze the penetration rate of Internet usage, the input of relevant practitioners, the output changes of related industries, and the penetration rate of urban mobile phone consumption and inclusive digital finance. The five dimensions of the index construct the regional digital economy index and analyze the impact of the digital economy on the transformation of industrial greening. Empirical studies have found that the development of the digital economy can significantly reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions while reducing electricity consumption per unit of GDP. There is no significant effect on wastewater discharge and soot.

More than a thousand words? The effect of photographic material on problem awareness and behavioral intentions regarding the sustainable consumption of mobile phones

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effect of emotionally connotated photographic material on problem awareness regarding sustainability and sustainable behavioral intentions of mobile phones. In a prestudy (N ​= ​110), photographs related to the ecological and social sustainability of smartphones were tested for their valence and arousal. Photographs with a high arousal level and either positive (positive condition) or negative (negative condition) valence were selected. In the main study (N ​= ​435), these photographs were tested in a three-factorial experimental design. Each photo condition contained one pair of photographs depicting ecological and social sustainability. Results indicate that displaying negatively connotated photographic material leads to a higher awareness regarding the problems associated with smartphones compared to the display of positive photographs and a message only. However, no effect was found for the intention to consider sustainability in future purchase decisions or recycling intentions of mobile phones. The effect of the negative photographs on problem awareness was mediated by the credibility of the information presented. Based on the findings, limitations and practical implications are discussed. Specifically, understanding the effects of different types of photographical material on problem awareness can represent the basis for the successful design of marketing or information campaigns regarding the sustainability of mobile phones.

Energy Cycle Optimization of Mobile Phones Using A Sleep Cycle Optimization Algorithm

Researchers and mobile network operators are dealing with the steep rise in energy consumption of mobile phones. A massive amount of phones are available in the market which are updating services from time to time. The problem lies in their battery drainage in response to the usage of internet-based applications including online streaming, multimedia requests, social networking usage and many more. In this research, a new technique is proposed and evaluated for energy optimization in mobile phones by exploiting the listening cycle of the mobile station (MS) wake-up mode while connected to the base station (BS) that is connected to a mobile network based on IEEE 802.16e. An MS cannot communicate with the BS if it is in the sleep mode while the other is in the wake-up mode. Service time and sojourn time are assumed to be exponential and based on t-distribution. The confidence interval comes up to 95% for our technique. The relative error is computed between the earlier techniques available and the approximated proposed one. Results show that there is a considerable improvement in energy consumption as compared to the other available techniques.

Adaptive Predictive Power Management for Mobile LTE Devices

Reducing the energy consumption of mobile phones is a crucial design goal for cellular modem solutions for LTE and 5G NR standards. Most dynamic power management techniques targeting mobile devices proposed so far, however, are purely reactive in powering down and up system components. Promising approaches extend this, by predicting information from the cell and the communication protocol to take decisions proactively. In this paper, we present a complete proactive power management approach for the modem based on on-line grant prediction. In this context, we define proactive policies that allow a mobile device to go to sleep states more often compared to reactive power management systems, e.g., in time slots of predicted transmission inactivity in a cell. Furthermore, we propose and compare two algorithmic solutions to this proactive grant prediction problem, one a feed-forward neural network and one a SARSA-λ reinforcement agent. As the implementation of these machine learning techniques also creates additional energy and resource costs, both approaches are carefully designed, optimized, and evaluated not only in terms of prediction accuracy, but also in terms of overall energy savings. Notably, our predictor implementations are able to achieve up to 17 percent in overall energy savings on real-world traces.

Energy Modeling of IoT Mobile Terminals on WiFi Environmental Impacts †.

With the popularity of various IoT mobile terminals such as mobile phones and sensors, the energy problems of IoT mobile terminals have attracted increasingly more attention. In this paper, we explore the impacts of some important factors of WiFi environments on the energy consumption of mobile phones, which are typical IoT end devices. The factors involve the WiFi signal strength under good signal conditions, the type and the amount of protocol packets that are initiated by WiFi APs (Access Points) to maintain basic network communication with the phones. Controlled experiments are conducted to quantitatively study the phone energy impacts by the above WiFi environmental factors. To describe such impacts, we construct a time-based signal strength-aware energy model and packet type/amount-aware energy models. The models constructed in the paper corroborate the following user experience on phone energy consumption: (1) a phone’s energy is drawn faster under higher WiFi signal strengths than under lower ones even in normal signal conditions; (2) phones consume energy faster in a public WiFi network than in a private one even in the basic phone state. The energy modeling methods proposed in the paper enable ordinary developers to analyze phone energy draw conveniently by utilizing inexpensive power meters as measurement tools. The modeling methods are general and are able to be used for phones of any type and any platform.

Who Made Your Phone? Compassion and the Voice of the Oppressed in Phone Story and Burn the Boards

Burn the Boards (Causa Creations, 2015) portrays the life of an Indian worker who recycles electronic waste in a precarious environment. Phone Story (Molleindustria, 2011) simulates the journey and process of production and consumption of mobile phones, from Congo and China to Pakistan. Whereas Phone Story is described as ‘an educational game’ that addresses the player directly as a consumer, Burn the Boards is a resource management puzzle that creates compassion through role playing. These games bring to the fore a hidden reality of the everyday that is ingrained in historical relationships and power dynamics, drawing attention to what Michael Rothberg has recognized as ‘exploitation in an age of globalized neo-liberal capitalism’ (2014: iv). This article explores how these games denounce the smartphone industry by using that same technology. For this purpose, we refer to Game Studies theory on procedural rhetoric; values and ethics; and the role of the player, combined with questions of (neo)colonization, globalization, and neoliberalism drawn from Postcolonial Studies. Our analysis shows the complicity of users and their confrontation with the extreme vulnerability of others, emphasizing how the coloniality of power works in our global consumer society. Thus we study the power relationships described and established by these games, the affective reactions which they seek to trigger, and their potential to transform players from passive observers into ethical players and consumers.

Exploring the inner loops of the circular economy: Replacement, repair, and reuse of mobile phones in Austria

The ’circular economy’ paradigm is taking hold in the mobile phone sector as a solution to increasing resource use. This paper explores three dimensions of the consumption of mobile phones: timing of replacement, repair, and reuse. Combining quantitative evidence from a large-scale questionnaire survey (n = 988) with 25 qualitative household interviews, we identify the consumers’ motivations underpinning their considerations regarding replacement timing, replace versus repair, and new versus second-hand phones. The findings from this study suggest that mobile phone replacements are not only based on a desire for the new, but primarily on the perceived obsoleteness of the current phone. We identify three forms of perceived obsolescence, being either related to a phone’s 1) basic functionality, 2) up-to-dateness, or 3) ability to keep up with social practices. Furthermore, it is shown that the perceived speed of obsolescence is key to considerations of phone repair and reuse. Overall, the results call into question the prevalent picture of novelty-oriented mobile phone consumers, exposing the paradoxical nature of consumer strategies to resist the fast pace of obsolescence.

Gendered identities in the consumption of mobile phones among youth in Botswana

Abstract Research on the interactive relationship between youth and mobile phones has demonstrated that mobile devices have become indispensable in many aspects of youth lifestyles. Despite this, there is currently very limited research on mobile phone cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article considers two very distinct gendered identities resulting from mobile phone consumption among students in Botswana: one involving adolescent females using colourful mobile phones and brightly coloured casings for their handsets as symbols of fashion and modernity, and the other relating to their male counterparts mostly preferring to own smartphones that are costly as these handsets gratify their sense of having a contemporary personal status. I then go on to demonstrate that although the findings from this study are analogous to those from similar studies worldwide, to a large extent, the gendered identities exhibited among youth in Botswana contexts are predicated on conventional practices entrenched in the traditional Tswana lifestyle.

Urban youth in Botswana and their habitual practice of texting

AbstractIn this article, I consider mobile phone consumption among urban youth in Botswana, focusing specifically on texting. During the course of this article, I demonstrate that due to the continuous need to connect with other people, as well as the inexpensive nature of texting on mobile phones, urban youth in Botswana have developed a penchant to texting on mobile phones. In particular, youth use text messaging on their devices to re-ensconce their traditional obligations of connecting with family, relatives and associates; and to link-up with their peers and other users through sms, chats, emails and online social networks. Despite this, much texting when other people are around is considered an ill-mannered activity among youth in Botswana. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that much texting, which is common among youth in Botswana is an indication that there is a close relationship between mobile phone use and the socio-economic challenges such as unemployment, poverty and rural to urban migration and that users of these devices face.

Reducing energy consumption of mobile phones during data transmission and encryption for wireless body area network applications

Wireless body area networks WBANs are an exciting technology that will revolutionize physiological monitoring in the coming years. However, the widespread deployment of WBANs is restricted by steep energy limitations. Furthermore, they require acute security measures to protect user medical data. We aim to measure the energy consumption of a cellphone as it transmits and encrypts data in a mock WBAN scenario. We evaluated the impact of various design parameters in an effort to discover the ideal WBAN operational protocols. In conclusion, we recommend an optimal file size strategy, data communication network, and encryption algorithm that minimize energy consumption and enhance WBAN operation. Copyright © 2015John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Initial Studies about Gold Leaching from Printed Circuit Boards (PCB's) of Waste Cell Phones

Excessive consumption of mobile phones, a decrease in their life time and, therefore, an increase in the generation of this type of electronic scrap, is noted in recent years. Printed circuit boards (PCB's) from waste cell phones are attractive resources because of the valuable metals Cu, Au, Ag, Pd they possess, but at the same time dangerous due to their content of heavy metals. The treatment of these boards is desirable from an economic and environmental perspective.In this paper we inform the results achieved on laboratory leaching of gold contained in PCB's from cell phones. The reagents used were ammonium thiosulfate in basic medium and thiourea in sulfuric acid solution. Prior to gold leaching, the plates were subjected to grinding to reduce their size to less than 2mm and to an oxidizing leaching in sulfuric acid solution to separate the copper. The conditions studied in the leaching test were: thiosulfate molar concentration between 0.08M and 0.12M and ammonium hydroxide from 0.1M to 0.2M, temperature of 20° C, pH = 10.5 and 15mM of cupric ion. In thiourea leaching, gold dissolution was studied by varying the concentration of the reagent between 20g/l to 28g/l. The results indicate that, under the conditions studied, ammonium thiosulfate is a more effective reagent for the dissolution of gold than thiourea. The gold dissolution values achieved were up 70% for thiosulfate and no greater than 40% for thiourea.

Português

Given the privatization of the Telebras system in 1998 and the constant development of new technologies, mobile phone consumption picked up in the form of a craze in Brazil to the extent of in 2010 mile stoning 100% density, i.e., more than 190 million units were then in use within the domestic market. On the other hand, it seems appropriate to wonder what happens to this equipment once their lifecycle ends. Sheltered by this context, the prime purpose of this study is not only to evaluate user behaviour in the State of Sao Paulo in as much as mobile phone disposal and recycling is concerned, but also to contribute with the improvement of the current scenario. To this effect, some aspects of existing Brazilian mobile telephony market post-consumption reverse logistics practices were diagnosed. A quantitative exploratory survey centred on Sao Paulo State respondents was also conducted so as to pinpoint their behaviour in terms of mobile phone recycling and assess the factors that influence their disposal and recycling. Outcomes unveiled that although 60% of respondents are aware of the fact that mobile phones are recyclable, only 7% have so done with their old phones. Finally, the study sought to contribute with suggested mobile phone market actions so as to increase post-consumption recycling.

Comportamento do Usuário em Relação ao Descarte e Reciclagem de Aparelhos Celulares no Estado de São Paulo

Com a privatização do Sistema Telebras em 1998 e com o desenvolvimento constante de novas tecnologias, os aparelhos celulares tornaram-se uma febre de consumo no Brasil, atingindo a importante marca de 100% de densidade em 2010, ou seja, mais de 190 milhões de aparelhos em utilização no mercado nacional. Porém, cabe questionar qual o destino dado para esses aparelhos ao final de sua vida útil. Nesse contexto, o objetivo principal deste trabalho é não só avaliar o comportamento do usuário do estado de São Paulo em relação ao descarte e à reciclagem de aparelhos celulares, como também contribuir para a melhoria do cenário atual. Para isso, foi feito um diagnóstico sobre algumas das práticas de logística reversa pós-consumo já existentes no mercado de telefonia móvel no Brasil, além da realização de uma pesquisa exploratória quantitativa (survey) com foco nos respondentes do estado de São Paulo para identificar seu comportamento quanto à reciclagem de aparelhos celulares e para avaliar os fatores que influenciam no descarte e na reciclagem. Nos resultados da pesquisa, evidenciou-se que, apesar de 60% dos respondentes terem ciência de que um aparelho celular pode ser reciclado, apenas 7% já reciclaram seu celular antigo. Por fim, no trabalho, buscou-se contribuir com a sugestão de ações para o mercado de telefonia celular a fim de aumentar a reciclagem de aparelhos no pós-consumo.

Mobile multimedia streaming techniques: QoE and energy saving perspective

Multimedia streaming to mobile devices is challenging for two reasons. First, the way content is delivered to a client must ensure that the user does not experience a long initial playback delay or a distorted playback in the middle of a streaming session. Second, multimedia streaming applications are among the most energy hungry applications in smartphones. The energy consumption mostly depends on the delivery techniques and on the power management techniques of wireless access technologies (Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G). In order to provide insights on what kind of streaming techniques exist, how they work on different mobile platforms, their efforts in providing smooth quality of experience, and their impact on energy consumption of mobile phones, we did a large set of active measurements with several smartphones having both Wi-Fi and cellular network access. Our analysis reveals five different techniques to deliver the content to the video players. The selection of a technique depends on the mobile platform, device, player, quality, and service. The results from our traffic and power measurements allow us to conclude that none of the identified techniques is optimal because they take none of the following facts into account: access technology used, user behavior, and user preferences concerning data waste. We point out the technique with the best playback buffer configuration, which provides the most attractive trade-offs in particular situations.

Social semiotics and literacy: A case study about the social meanings constructed by ads of a children’s magazine

This article aims to contribute to studies on literacy and multimodality from the theoretical perspective of social semiotics and the methodological framework of visual grammar. The objective is to investigate the types of representations, interactions and compositions produced by visual semiotic resources configured by advertising images promoted by Visão Júnior, a Portuguese magazine dedicated to children and youth. The results show: a) the promotion of television channels and news publications owned by the media group of which Visão Júnior is also part which are aimed at adults; b) the encouragement of reading and the consumption of cultural products and events; c) the association between the consumption of food and sport; d) the introduction of new values in the child’s universe, such as the use and consumption of mobile phones, as well as familiarising the child with banks and their possible relationships with money.

A critical analysis of the sustainability of mobile phone use

In the last twenty years, there has been a sharp increase in the consumption of commodities with a short life-cycle. This is especially true for electronic equipment such as mobile phones, which are the focus of this paper. The short lifespan, which is due to continually substituting obsolete equipment with newer and more innovative models, has stimulated the growth in sales of these electronic goods. Europe continues to be the main mobile phone market in developed countries, but this growth has slowed down over the last two years. Despite being an already mature market, Italy has a “diffusion rate” (i.e., the number of active lines per 100 inhabitants) higher than 146, which is the highest in the European Union.This scenario demonstrated the need for a study examining the sustainability of the mobile phone sector according to two critical aspects that are often due to the behavioural patterns of the users: the first is the energy consumption of mobile phones and their associated equipment, and the second is related to the conflicting link between potential dematerialisation due to the miniaturisation of the devices and the resource consumption and waste generated in this sector. This paper discusses these two critical aspects and presents an overview of the Italian mobile phone sector, particularly related to the energy consumption during the use phase and increase of mass flows due to the devices circulating in Italy and the higher amount of the disposable products that have to be managed.The results show that, in Italy, the entire mobile phone system consumes approximately 2200GWh per year, which is equal to 0.7% of the national electricity consumption, and produces potential e-waste from end-of-life devices totalling over 11 thousand tonnes for the period from 2007 to 2012. Concerning the issue of resources consumption, this estimate highlights that the potential savings in inputs, due to the reduction in device weight over time, has always been counteracted by their increasing demand.

A Danger Theory Based Mobile Virus Detection Model and Its Application in Inhibiting Virus

According to the propagation and destruction characteristics of mobile phone viruses, a virus detection model based on the Danger Theory is proposed. This model includes four phases: danger capture, antigen presentation, antibody generation and antibody distribution. In this model, local knowledge of mobile phones is exploited by the agents that are running in mobile phones to discover danger caused by viruses. The Antigen Presenting Cells (APCs) present the antigen from mobile phones in the danger zone, and the Decision Center confirms the infection of viruses. After the antibody is generated by self-tolerating using the negative selection algorithm, the Decision Center distributes the antibody to mobile phones. Due to the distributed and cooperative mechanism of artificial immune system, the proposed model lowers the storage and computing consumption of mobile phones. The simulation results show that based on the mobile phone virus detection model, the proposed virus immunization strategy can effectively inhibit the propagation of mobile phone viruses.