13 March 2010

Observation of gender-related mobile phone usage

Warning: this post may be perceived as offensive to some overly sensitive persons of female persuasion. Please refrain from attacking the author before you finished reading it.

Disclaimer: no men or women were harmed during research and preparation of this post.

Introduction

While many a general observation was published on various phenomena related to use of cellular phone by women (such as choosing the same ringtone in 80% of the cases, frantic search for the ringing phone in the depths of that bag etc), no detailed analysis was performed on specifics of the undoubtedly complex interaction between a woman and her mobile.

This research concentrates on one single aspect of the multifaceted woman-phone interaction. Its purpose was to establish the reasons for the calls to a cell phone of a specific person remaining unanswered in 80 to 90 %% of the cases.

The statistics were collected during close to 10 years.

The person under observation reviewed the results and, while some of her comments were censored due to highly personal contents, the essential data wasn't challenged.

The structure of the following report is fairly basic: it contains three main parts:

  • Conditions under which the phone call wasn't answered (total of 80 to 90%%)
  • Conditions under which the phone call was answered (total of 10 to 20%%)
  • Conclusions
1. Conditions under which the phone call wasn't answered

1.1 Forgotten at home

1.1.1 Charged and switched on
1.1.2 Charged and switched off
1.1.3 Uncharged
1.1.4 Connected to the charger and switched on
1.1.5 Connected to the charger and switched off
1.1.6 Left at home on purpose (cause I am not taking my bag with me this time)

1.2 Not forgotten at home

1.2.1 Uncharged
1.2.2 Charged and switched off (by mistake)
1.2.3 Charged, switched on, left in another office
1.2.4 Charged, switched on, ringing not heard due to phone being deep in the bag
1.2.5 Charged, switched on, ringing heard but was too late to the phone to answer
1.2.6 Charged, switched on, ringing heard but busy (on the office phone)
1.2.7 Charged, switched on, ringing heard but couldn't answer due to sitting in a meeting

2. Conditions under which the phone call was answered

2.1 While driving (without a headset, which act carries a stiff fine in this country)
2.2 No reasonable explanation, the intangible and unscientific element of good luck has to be introduced. In general, this element is hardly of any importance due to extremely low percentage of this case.

3. Conclusions

Proven effective as means of establishing outgoing communication (when charged and switched on), mobile phones have yet to prove their effectiveness as a bi-directional wife-husband communication tool. Some science fiction authors mull on the possibility of implanted cell phones powered by heat of the human body. This could be the ultimate answer to the issue raised here. However, this theory remains to be validated in the field, and no doubt some new obstacles will be encountered.

1 comments:

malka milman said...

I have always maintained that cell phones are almost as harmful to the society as computers and e-mail. I missed this aspect: cell phone as a means to inflict damage on spousal relationship.