Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, such as keeping in touch with family members, for conducting business, and in order to have access to a telephone in the event of an emergency. Some people carry more than one mobile phone for different purposes, such as for business and personal use. Multiple SIM cards may be used to take advantage of the benefits of different calling plans. For example, a particular plan might provide for cheaper local calls, long-distance calls, international calls, or roaming. The mobile phone has been used in a variety of diverse contexts in society. For example: • A study by
Motorola found that one in ten mobile phone subscribers have a second phone that is often kept secret from other family members. These phones may be used to engage in such activities as extramarital affairs or clandestine business dealings. • Some organizations assist victims of domestic violence by providing mobile phones for use in emergencies. These are often refurbished phones. • The advent of widespread text-messaging has resulted in the
cell phone novel, the first literary genre to emerge from the cellular age, via
text messaging to a website that collects the novels as a whole. •
Mobile telephony also facilitates activism and
citizen journalism. • The
United Nations reported that mobile phones have spread faster than any other form of technology and can improve the livelihood of the poorest people in developing countries, by providing access to information in places where
landlines or the Internet are not available, especially in the
least developed countries. Use of mobile phones also spawns a wealth of micro-enterprises, by providing such work as selling airtime on the streets and repairing or refurbishing handsets. • In
Mali and other African countries, people used to travel from village to village to let friends and relatives know about weddings, births, and other events. This can now be avoided in areas with mobile phone coverage, which are usually more extensive than areas with just land-line penetration. • The TV industry has recently started using mobile phones to drive live TV viewing through mobile apps, advertising,
social TV, and
mobile TV. It is estimated that 86% of Americans use their mobile phone while watching TV. • In some parts of the world, mobile phone sharing is common. Cell phone sharing is prevalent in urban India, as families and groups of friends often share one or more mobile phones among their members. There are obvious economic benefits, but often familial customs and traditional gender roles play a part. It is common for a village to have access to only one mobile phone, perhaps owned by a teacher or missionary, which is available to all members of the village for necessary calls. • Smartphones also have the use for individuals who suffer from diabetes. There are apps for patients with diabetes to self monitor their blood sugar, and can sync with flash monitors. The apps have a feature to send automated feedback or possible warnings to other family members or healthcare providers in the case of an emergency.
Content distribution In 1998, one of the first examples of
distributing and selling media content through the mobile phone was the sale of
ringtones by
Radiolinja in Finland. Soon afterwards, other media content appeared, such as news, video games, jokes, horoscopes, TV content and advertising. Most early content for mobile phones tended to be copies of
legacy media, such as banner advertisements or TV news highlight video clips. Recently, unique content for mobile phones has been emerging, from ringtones and
ringback tones to
mobisodes, video content that has been produced exclusively for mobile phones.
Mobile banking and payment In many countries, mobile phones are used to provide
mobile banking services, which may include the ability to transfer cash payments by secure SMS text message. Kenya's
M-PESA mobile banking service, for example, allows customers of the mobile phone operator
Safaricom to hold cash balances which are recorded on their SIM cards. Cash can be deposited or withdrawn from M-PESA accounts at Safaricom retail outlets located throughout the country and can be transferred electronically from person to person and used to pay bills to companies.
Branchless banking has also been successful in South Africa and the
Philippines. A pilot project in
Bali was launched in 2011 by the
International Finance Corporation and an
Indonesian bank,
Bank Mandiri. Mobile payments were first trialled in Finland in 1998 when two Coca-Cola vending machines in
Espoo were enabled to work with SMS payments. Eventually, the idea spread and in 1999, the Philippines launched the country's first commercial mobile payments systems with mobile operators
Globe and
Smart. Some mobile phones can make
mobile payments via direct mobile billing schemes, or through
contactless payments if the phone and the
point of sale support
near field communication (NFC). Enabling contactless payments through NFC-equipped mobile phones requires the co-operation of manufacturers, network operators, and retail merchants.
Mobile tracking Mobile phones are commonly used to collect location data. While the phone is turned on, the geographical location of a mobile phone can be determined easily (whether it is being used or not) using a technique known as
multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the mobile phone to each of several
cell towers near the owner of the phone. The movements of a mobile phone user can be tracked by their service provider and, if desired, by law enforcement agencies and their governments. Both the
SIM card and the handset can be tracked. In the UK and US, law enforcement and intelligence services use mobile phones to perform surveillance operations. Hackers have been able to track a phone's location, read messages, and record calls, through obtaining a subscriber's phone number.
Electronic waste regulation Studies have shown that around 40–50% of the environmental impact of mobile phones occurs during the manufacture of their printed wiring boards and integrated circuits. The average user replaces their mobile phone every 11 to 18 months, and the discarded phones then contribute to
electronic waste. Mobile phone manufacturers within
Europe are subject to the
WEEE directive, and Australia has introduced a mobile phone recycling scheme.
Apple Inc. had an advanced robotic disassembler and sorter called Liam specifically for recycling outdated or broken iPhones.
Theft According to the
Federal Communications Commission, one out of three robberies involve the theft of a cellular phone. Police data in San Francisco show that half of all robberies in 2012 were thefts of cellular phones. An
online petition on
Change.org, called
Secure our Smartphones, urged smartphone manufacturers to install
kill switches in their devices to make them unusable if stolen. The petition is part of a joint effort by New York Attorney General
Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney
George Gascón and was directed to the
CEOs of the major smartphone manufacturers and telecommunication carriers. On 10 June 2013, Apple announced that it would install a "
kill switch" on its
next iPhone operating system, due to debut in October 2013. All mobile phones have a unique identifier called
IMEI. Anyone can report their phone as lost or stolen with their Telecom Carrier, and the IMEI would be blacklisted with a central registry. Telecom carriers, depending upon local regulation can or must implement blocking of blacklisted phones in their network. There are, however, a number of ways to circumvent a blacklist. One method is to send the phone to a country where the telecom carriers are not required to implement the blacklisting and sell it there, another involves altering the phone's IMEI number. Even so, mobile phones typically have less value on the second-hand market if the phones original IMEI is blacklisted.
Conflict minerals Demand for metals used in mobile phones and other electronics fuelled the
Second Congo War, which claimed almost 5.5 million lives. In a 2012 news story,
The Guardian reported: "In unsafe mines deep underground in eastern Congo,
children are working to extract minerals essential for the electronics industry. The profits from the minerals finance the bloodiest conflict since the second world war; the war has lasted nearly 20 years and has recently flared up again. For the last 15 years, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo has been a major source of natural resources for the mobile phone industry." The company
Fairphone has worked to develop a mobile phone that does not contain
conflict minerals.
Kosher phones Due to concerns by the
Orthodox Jewish rabbinate in Britain that texting by youths could waste time and lead to "immodest" communication, the rabbinate recommended that phones with text-messaging capability not be used by children; to address this, they gave their official approval to a brand of "Kosher" phones with no texting capabilities. Although these phones are intended to prevent
immodesty, some vendors report good sales to adults who prefer the simplicity of the devices; other Orthodox Jews question the need for them. In Israel, similar phones to kosher phones with restricted features exist to observe the
sabbath; under Orthodox Judaism, the use of any electrical device is generally prohibited during this time, other than to save lives, or reduce the risk of death or similar needs. Such phones are approved for use by essential workers, such as health, security, and public service workers.
Restrictions Restrictions on the use of mobile phones are applied in a number of different contexts, often with the goal of health, safety, security or proper functioning of an establishment, or as a matter of etiquette. Such contexts include:
While driving Mobile phone use while driving, including talking on the phone, texting, or operating other phone features, is common but controversial. It is widely considered dangerous due to
distracted driving. Being distracted while operating a motor vehicle has been shown to increase the risk of accidents. In September 2010, the US
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 995 people were killed by
drivers distracted by cell phones. In March 2011, a US insurance company,
State Farm Insurance, announced the results of a study which showed 19% of drivers surveyed accessed the Internet on a smartphone while driving. Many jurisdictions prohibit the use of mobile phones while driving. In Egypt, Israel, Japan, Portugal, and Singapore, both handheld and hands-free use of a mobile phone (which uses a
speakerphone) is banned. In other countries, including the UK and France and in many
US states, only handheld phone use is banned while hands-free use is permitted. A 2011 study reported that over 90% of college students surveyed text (initiate, reply or read) while driving. The scientific literature on the dangers of driving while sending a text message from a mobile phone, or
texting while driving, is limited. A simulation study at the
University of Utah found a sixfold increase in distraction-related accidents when texting. Due to the increasing complexity of mobile phones, they are often more like mobile computers in their available uses. This has introduced additional difficulties for law enforcement officials when attempting to distinguish one usage from another in drivers using their devices. This is more apparent in countries which ban both handheld and hands-free usage, rather than those which ban handheld use only, as officials cannot easily tell which function of the mobile phone is being used simply by looking at the driver. This can lead to drivers being stopped for using their device illegally for a phone call when, in fact, they were using the device legally, for example, when using the phone's incorporated controls for car stereo,
GPS or
satnav. A 2010 study reviewed the incidence of mobile phone use while
cycling and its effects on behaviour and safety. In 2013, a national survey in the US reported the number of drivers who reported using their cellphones to access the Internet while driving had risen to nearly one of four. A study conducted by the University of Vienna examined approaches for reducing inappropriate and problematic use of mobile phones, such as using mobile phones while driving. Accidents involving a driver being distracted by talking on a mobile phone have begun to be prosecuted as negligence similar to speeding. In the
United Kingdom, from 27 February 2007, motorists who are caught using a hand-held mobile phone while driving will have three penalty points added to their license in addition to the fine of £60. This increase was introduced to try to stem the increase in drivers ignoring the law.
Japan prohibits all mobile phone use while driving, including use of hands-free devices. New Zealand has banned hand-held cell phone use since 1 November 2009. Many states in the United States have banned texting on cell phones while driving. Illinois became the 17th American state to enforce this law. , 30 states had banned texting while driving, with Kentucky becoming the most recent addition on 15 July.
Public Health Law Research maintains a list of distracted driving laws in the United States. This database of laws provides a comprehensive view of the provisions of laws that restrict the use of mobile communication devices while driving for all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 1992 when first law was passed, through 1 December 2010. The dataset contains information on 22 dichotomous, continuous or
categorical variables including, for example, activities regulated (e.g., texting versus talking, hands-free versus handheld), targeted populations, and exemptions.
On aircraft While walking Between 2011 and 2019, an estimated 30,000 walking injuries occurred in the US related to using a cellphone, leading to some jurisdictions attempting to ban pedestrians from using their cellphones. Other countries, such as China and the Netherlands, have introduced special lanes for smartphone users to help direct and manage them.
In prisons In hospitals As of 2007, some hospitals had banned mobile devices due to a
common misconception that their use would create significant
electromagnetic interference.
Health effects Screen time, the amount of time using a device with a screen, has become an issue for mobile phones since the adaptation of smartphones. Research is being conducted to show the correlation between screen time and the mental and physical harm in child development. To prevent harm, some parents and even governments have placed restrictions on its usage. There have been rumors that mobile phone use can cause cancer, but this is a myth. While there are rumors of mobile phones causing cancer, there was a study conducted by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that stated the there could be an increase risk of brain tumors with the use of smartphones, this is not confirmed. They also stated that with the lack of data for the research and the usage periods of 15 years will warrant further research for smartphones and the cause of brain tumors.
Educational impact A study by the
London School of Economics found that banning mobile phones in schools could increase pupils' academic performance, providing benefits equal to one extra week of schooling per year. == Culture and popularity ==