Smartphones: Advantages and Disadvantages

Running Head: CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING 1
Critical Thinking and Managerial Decision Making
Name:
Institution

CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING 2
Introduction
Mobiles devices are integrated into the daily lives of most individuals across the world.
Majority of the smartphone users are increasingly relying on their phones in the day to day
activities. Mobile phones have facilitated globalization and increase connectivity between family
and friends. Additionally, smartphones have facilitated access to information and entertainment.
They are used in the academic field for researching, reading and reviewing scholarly articles.
Smartphones have changed dramatically the life of its users by integrating many key
functionalities such as camera and messaging into the device. Statistics indicate that more than
half of the world population owns a smartphone device. In a survey conducted in 2016 by Bank
of America, 95 percent of millennials, aged between 18 to 25 years, retaliated the importance of
smartphones in their lives. The survey additionally established that individuals check their
smartphones every 6 minutes. Amid the benefits that have been outlined, the continuous use of
smartphones has been found to have some adverse effects, especially among the millennials.
There is an issue of nomophobia, which is the anxiety that arises from being away from a
smartphone device. Every aspect has its advantages and disadvantages. With the growing
concerns surrounding the issue of smartphones, there are mixed feeling as to whether the rise in
the use of smartphones is a good or a bad thing.
Smartphones have the ubiquitous ability to bridge the technology and infrastructure gap
that exists in the developing worlds. The rise of smartphones has replaced the use of landlines
telephones because it is much easier to acquire a cell signal than to construct the labor-intensive
landlines. In the developing nations, about 84 percent of the inhabitants have access to mobile
devices whereas the use of landline is down to less than 1 percent. The prevalence use of
smartphones devices has increase globalization through the provision of interconnection

CRITICAL THINKING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING 3
opportunities in the developing world. Stranton university carried out extensive research in 2013,
that indicated; mobile economy contributes to over 2.4 trillion US dollars in the international
market and created over 10 million jobs (Choi, Jung & Lee, 2013). Smartphones are attributed to
the creation of new telecommunication and application industries. Similarly, they have enabled
the convenient use of financial facilities. Most banks today have developed smartphones
application that enables the users to track the activities of their bank accounts real-time at the
convenience of their smartphones.
Smartphones give users the ability to access information from any part of the world. The
user just needs to have internet connectivity and he or she can be able to be informed of what is
happening all around the world. Additionally, this increased accessibility of information has
enabled multinational cooperation to reap big on sales. Advertising companies can advertise
various brands to different users all around the world and promote trade. For example, the
Amazon online store is one of the biggest online platforms that connect customers to buyers
(Pernek, Hummel & Kokol, 2013). Through its platform, a customer in South Africa can be able
to order goods from a store in America and have it shipped within 3 working days. A survey was
done by Placecast in 2014 established that about 40 percent of consumers rely on mobile
platform reviews from other customers to inform their buying decisions. This has created a new
marketing gap for advertising companies, hence facilitating worldwide globalization through the
use of smartphones.
Smartphones are an important tool for learning. This is because the current smartphones
are equipped with applications and web browsers that allows the user to access different kind of
information when connected to the internet. Goggle is a service provider that has long been tied
with the smartphones industries. The company develops the operating system for major