Mobile phones, addictive devices | Zambia Daily Mail

By DARLINGTON MWENDABAI
INTERESTING, in this communication era, most girls and women today are glued to their phones as opposed to their cooking sticks, because most of the phones on the market have fastest internet facilities.
This could be one of the main reasons 15-year-old Lydia Mwanza?s was found on Chipata?s Umozi highway under a cool-shed busy stroking the keys of her communication gadget despite not knowing how to use the internet.
Lydia recalls that she started using a mobile phone when she was 13 years in 2010 although unlike her Lusaka or City counterparts who love face-booking, she does not know how to browse or surf the ?Net? as the millennium kids prefer to call the internet.
She giggles and shyly admitted in an interview that her phone does not have internet facility so she cannot be connected to her friends on facebook.
However, Linda?s sibling Mary, who is 18 years and in grade 11 says, she started using the phone to communicate with her family and friends in 2009.
?I have five siblings.? Everyone on the family has a mobile phone. Communication is easy with a phone nowadays,? Mary says.
The same sentiments were echoed by a grade 10 pupil Alis Phiri who is 21 years.
She too started using a phone in 2009 and since then she does not write letters instead she uses Short Message Service (SMS) and spend at least K5000 per day to buy air time in her phone.
On the other hand, Mary Banda, 22, who sells scratch cards within Chipata?s main town centre says without a phone, life is difficult for her.
?Living without a phone is like living outside coverage area. I earn my living by selling scratch cards commonly known as airtime and at the end of the month, I get K180, 000 as my salary,? She says with a smile sparkling on her face.
With the advent of information and communications technologies (ICTs), mobile phones have become an important platform for people not only to ?facebook,? but also exercise their right to expression, information and opinion on matters of national importance.
To this effect, Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) has liberated the telecommunication industry where currently three mobile companies namely MTN-Zambia, Airtel Zambia and Zamtel are helping bridge the digital gap.
The three mobile companies have since flooded the local market with all sorts of ICT services such as mobile internet, money banking besides street mobile vendors who are selling cheap Chinese phones in every town of the country. This explains why today the pupils in Chipata prefer to communicate using their mobile phones.
ZICTA director general Margaret Chalwe-Mudenda says ICT?s contribution to Zambia?s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is around four percent per annum.
?ICT sector is contributing around K500 billion annually in form of taxes and is creating several jobs directly and indirectly throughout the country,? Mrs Chalwe-Mudenda says.
It has to be started Zambian?s ICT sector vision is ?A Zambia transformed into an information and knowledge-based society and economy supported by consistent development and pervasive access to ICTs by all citizens by 2030.?
While ICTs are powerful tools for development, the world?s most valuable resources are its people. Lack of access to information has been a key source of disempowerment of the rural population, leaving them susceptible to exploitation, avertable diseases, and injustice.
Therefore, the significance of ICTs should not be in the technologies as such but in the possibilities they open up for access to knowledge, information and communications.
It is with this reason that the members at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in Guadalajara in 2010, agreed to celebrate this year?s World Telecommunication day which fell on May 17 under a theme, ?Women and Girls in ICTs?.
World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) helps raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other ICT tools can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide.
The Telecommunication Day has been celebrated annually on May 17 since 1969, marking the founding of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged, ?Equality for women and girls is not only a basic human right it is a social and economic imperative. Where women are educated and empowered, economies are more productive and strong. Where women are fully represented, societies are more peaceful and stable.?
Gender equality therefore, is a basic human right enshrined in the UN Charter, and it is one of the main objectives of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The promoters of the theme said the use of the ICTs will provide new digital opportunities to end discrimination and empower the female half of the world?s population to achieve their rightful place as equals in the world.
Recently, Norwegian researchers undertook a research on gender profiles of internet and mobile phone use among Norwegian adolescents and discovered that while boys prefer e-commerce, playing games or videos, girls more frequent uses text messaging than boys.
The researchers also discovered Norwegian girls used the internet far more often for social activities such as chatting and e-viewing.
It is therefore not surprising today to find that the use of mobile or cell phones is becoming increasingly common in today?s society with over 5 billion connections worldwide.
The Asia-Pacific region for example accounts for nearly half of all connections, and other regions such as Africa, South America and Eastern Europe are also seeing rapid growth.
There are more women using mobile phones all across the world than with access to a personal computer.
Research also shows that currently, there are 5.9 billion mobile subscribers (that?s 87 percent of the world population). Growth is led by China and India, which now account for over 30 percent of world subscribers.
Mobile devices sales rose in 2011 where Smartphone?s showed strongest growth, Nokia remained the number one handset manufacturer, but Samsung is now the leading Smartphone hardware vendor while Android is now the top Smartphone operating system.
Based on the latest statistics for active mobile-broadband subscriptions worldwide with Asia topping the region, there are now 1.2 billion mobile Web users worldwide.
One may wonder what consumers use their mobiles for. Consumers in Japan are still more advanced in mobile behaviour, using mobile Web, applications and email more, but those in United States or Europeans love to text and play more games.
US consumers prefer mobile browsers for banking, travel, shopping, local info, news, video, sports and blogs and prefer apps for games, social media, maps and music.
At the end of 2011, there were 6 billion mobile subscriptions, estimates the ITU. That is equivalent to 87 percent of the world population. And is a huge increase from 5.4 billion in 2010 and 4.7billion mobile subscriptions in 2009.
Mobile subscribers in the developed world has reached saturation point with at least one cell phone subscription per person.
This means market growth is being driven by demand developing world, led by rapid mobile adoption in China and India, the world?s most populous nations.
These two countries collectively added 300 million new mobile subscriptions in 2010 -that?s more than the total mobile subscribers in the US.
At the end of 2011 there were 4.5 billion mobile subscriptions in the developing world (76 percent of global subscriptions). Mobile penetration in the developing world now is 79 percent, with Africa being the lowest region worldwide at 53 percent.
In Asia and the Pacific, for example, restricting job opportunities for women is costing the region between US$ 42 billion and US$46 billion a year.
World Bank findings demonstrate that similar restrictions have imposed massive costs throughout the Arab States, where the gender gap in economic opportunity remains the widest in the world today. In its ?Global Gender Gap Reports?, for the past five years, the World Economic Forum has also been quantifying the magnitude offender-based disparities.
The report reveals those countries that are role models in dividing resources equitably between women and men, regardless of their level of resources; fare better than those that do not.
Other studies exploring the link between women in leadership positions and business performance have shown a positive correlation between gender diversity on top leadership teams and a company?s financial results.
Interesting, the debate in Zambia today is not that a rural or urban a girl or woman have no access to a phone or internet, but how such a girl or woman is using ICT facilities to improve the economy of the country.

Source: http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=11460

the express zappos hacked bit coin huntsman jon huntsman idris elba kelsey grammer