Dr Fawad Kaiser
Mobile phone markets are one of the most rapidly growing markets today due to increased competition and change. Thus, it is of clinical interest to look at users’ buying-decision process and the factors that finally determine consumer choice in why they buy expensive and different mobile phone brands. For the same reason all but only the wealthiest buy status symbols. To be fair, this is just an honest expression of incredulity, why do people spend so much money on useless status symbols like mobile phones, handbags, belts, clothes and shoes and televisions and cars? 
One thing that transpires is that one person’s illogical belief is another person’s survival skill. And nothing is more logical than trying to survive. We want to belong. And, not just for the psychic rewards, but belonging to one group at the right time can mean the difference between unemployment and employment, a good job as opposed to a bad job, housing or a shelter, and so on. Someone mentioned in a debate that people can be presentable with affordable options, but then the issue is not about being presentable. Presentable is the bare minimum of social civility and it means being acceptable in the society and successful in social interactions. For the privileged ones, barely presentable is a compromised option reserved for the weak and unfavorable. Presentable, therefore is relative and, like life, it isn’t fair.
It is also found that mobile phone choice and especially usage is consistent with respondents’ general consumption styles. The research showed that addictive use was common among females and was related to their trendy and impulsive consumption styles and males were instead found more technology enthusiastic and trend conscious. Over time however, it is appearing now that genders are becoming more alike in mobile phone choice, yet individual differences in consumption patterns remain obviously identifiable. Interestingly, mobile phones are developing at a pace closing in to acquire the status of personal digital assistants (PDAs), and many users tend to be unaware of the dependence hidden beneath their regular use.
What started out as a means of appropriate social interaction have now become a status symbol and a new age identification marker, and it does not even have a capped material value: it’s just a mobile phone. With more than five billion mobile phones in use today, the link between materialism and electronic devices is creating a generation of learned compulsive behavior and psychologists are worried to analyze this substantial amount of compulsion. Studies reported by the Journal of Behavioral Sciences show that young adult send an average of 109.5 text messages daily and check their mobile phones an average of 60 times a day.
Psychiatrists have found that mobile phone socialization is exclusive and interferes or replaces interfacing with people on a much needed social level. This tool is creating what some experts call the “Narcissist Generation” – those who truly believe they are so important and popular with their thoughts they make themselves available to whom over needs them. Social studies describe people with only a few social contacts compensate for their introversion, low-self-esteem, and low life-satisfaction by using new mobile phone for popularity, thus corroborating the principle of ‘the poor get richer’ (i.e., the social compensation hypothesis). Likewise, people higher in narcissistic personality traits tend to be more active on smart phones in order to present themselves favorably socially because the virtual environment empowers them to construct their ideal selves. 
Mobile phone, twitter and text addiction breeds the misplaced sense of self-importance making the young sycophantic susceptible to non-gainful unintelligent conversation. This meaningless interaction is time consuming and can displace activities of greater personal value. The new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V (DSM V), 5th edition, bible for mental health care professionals, has included an appendix to promote research of electronic gadgets addiction. In practice, that would include addiction to any electronic device which generates response behavior that presents as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and may be contributing to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).From a psychological view point, while these devices are increasing social connectivity, they are decreasing healthy social connectivity and interfering with human interaction that fosters intimacy and closeness.
College survey shows that students carry mobile phones to and use them during class and some experiments have demonstrated that mobile phones distract students from learning. Similarly studies of driving indicate that the conversational aspects of using mobile phones generate high risks from divided attention and drivers using mobile phones reveal that the cognitive distraction of conversations significantly increases accident risk. The National Safety Council has published a literature review explaining why cognitive load from mobile phones produces inattention blindness for drivers. Studies showed that listening to music or even to a recorded book did not produce high accident risks, as did conversing on mobile phones. Legal penalties are therefore strictly enforced where drivers are found using mobile phones without hands free sets while diving.
The highly renowned French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard once said: “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning”. To move forward from this age of being obsessively connected through mobile phones is having a mass amount of reassurance and self-security at your fingertips but it seems unlikely that we could ever just cut it out of our lives. Since there is barrage of new options thrown in the market by multinational mobile phone companies periodically there remains the increased risk of cellular addiction and a lack of ‘real’ connections for people and there is no quick fix solution and there may never be one!
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