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  • Essay / Social Construction of Technology: Development of Mobile Phones

    The social construction of technology (or SCOT) is a new research tradition rooted in the sociology of technology. SCOT provides a multidirectional model based on the property of interpretative flexibility and emphasizes social influences on the design and development of technology. This article will apply SCOT principles to explore the development of the cell phone, historically define the development of the cell phone in three different stages, and analyze the interpretative flexibility of the cell phone accordingly in the three different stages. Based on SCOT theory, this article will explain how the original huge cell phones are shaped and developed by the social influences of today's life smartphones. In 1983, Motorola released its first cell phone, known as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, which offered 30 minutes of battery life. of talk time, six hours of standby time and can store 30 phone numbers. At that time, cell phones were extremely expensive: the DynaTAC 8000X cost $3,995 and cellular network was limited. To analyze the development and interpretative flexibility of the cell phone in its early days, we must first introduce the social groups linked to the artifact. The users of the object constituted the largest social group. At the time, users mainly consisted of businessmen, managers, politicians, doctors, large companies, military personnel, etc. who had high incomes and had to maintain occasional contact with others. For them, cell phones were an extension of landlines that allowed communication to be maintained without range limits. So the problems this social group had with cell phones are pretty clear. Cell phones were too big and heavy, talk time was too short for frequent users and the nu...... middle of paper ......1fS3NiLAE&sig=n5NJOhab0TTbBoXm MGv7xddRqAU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6- JxUr_oOoqPiAKg8oGYDg&ved= 0CHYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=price%20of%20cell%20phone%20in%201980s&f=false Chowdhury. R. Evolution of mobile phones: 1995 - 2012. (nd). Retrieved from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-mobile-phones/ MobiThinking. World mobile statistics 2013 Part A: Mobile subscribers; mobile phone market share; mobile operators. (nd). Retrieved from http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#subscribers Poole. I. History of the cell phone. (nd). Retrieved from http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/history/mobile-cell-phone.php UMTS World. History of the development of UMTS and 3G. (nd). Retrieved from http://www.umtsworld.com/umts/history.htm WorldMapper. Cellular subscribers 1990. (nd). Retrieved from http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=333