scholarly journals The Social Implications of Technology Diffusion: Uncovering the Unintended Consequences of People’s Health-Related Mobile Phone Use in Rural India and China

2017 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 286-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco J. Haenssgen ◽  
Proochista Ariana
2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 1277-1284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masahiro Toda ◽  
Kazuyuki Monden ◽  
Kazuki Kubo ◽  
Kanehisa Morimoto

This study investigated the associations between the intensity of mobile phone use and health-related lifestyle. For 275 university students, we evaluated health-related lifestyle using the Health Practice Index (HPI; Hagihara & Morimoto, 1991; Kusaka, Kondou, & Morimoto, 1992) and analyzed responses to a questionnaire (MPDQ; Toda, Monden, Kubo, & Morimoto, 2004) designed, with a self-rating scale, to gauge mobile phone dependence. For males, there was a significant relationship between smoking habits and mobile phone dependence. We also found that male respondents with low HPI scores were significantly higher for mobile phone dependence. These findings suggest that, particularly for males, the intensity of mobile phone use may be related to healthy lifestyle.


Author(s):  
Seung-Hyun Lee

From being a simple communication technology to a key social tool, the mobile phone has become such an important aspect of people's everyday life. Mobile phones have altered the way people live, communicate, interact, and connect with others. Mobile phones are also transforming how people access and use information and media. Given the rapid pervasiveness of mobile phones in society across the world, it is important to explore how mobile phones have affected the way people communicate and interact with others, access the information, and use media, and their daily lifestyle. This article aims to explore the social and cultural implications that have come with the ubiquity, unprecedented connectivity, and advances of mobile phones. This article also focuses on the discussion about people's dependence on, attachment and addiction to mobile phones, social problems that mobile phones generate, and how people value mobile phone use.


Author(s):  
Emma Bond

This study explores children's perceptions of risk and mobile phones in their everyday lives. Technological developments associated with capitalist society are entwined with the risk discourse, but little account has previously been taken of children's views in social analyses of risk. Based on the accounts of thirty young people in the UK aged between 11 – 17 this study adopts a social constructivist perspective to offer a theoretical framework which explores how children themselves actually use mobile phone technologies and understand and manage risk in their everyday lives.Implications of risk and mobile phones are reflected in current media discourse and contemporary public discussions. This research explores the relationship between young people's use of mobile phone technology and the wider theoretical debates about risk, technology and subjectivity. It provides insight into the social aspects of risk and mobile phones in contemporary childhoods.The children in the research were reflexive in their understanding of risk and mobile phones and actively managed risk through their mobile phone use. Their accounts highlight the complex, multifarious relationships of the heterogeneous networks of the technical, the social and the natural that constitute children's everyday lives.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Mourali ◽  
Carly Drake

BACKGROUND The spread of false and misleading health information on social media can cause individual and social harm. Research on debunking has shown that properly designed corrections can mitigate the impact of misinformation, but little is known about the impact of correction in the context of prolonged social media debates. For example, when a social media user takes to Facebook to make a false claim about a health-related practice, and a health expert subsequently refutes the claim, the conversation rarely ends there. Often, the social media user proceeds by rebuking the critic and doubling down on the claim. OBJECTIVE The present research examines the impact of such extended back and forth between false claims and debunking attempts on observers’ dispositions toward behavior that science favors. We test competing predictions about the effect of extended exposure on people’s attitudes and intentions toward masking in public during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and explore several psychological processes potentially underlying this effect. METHODS Five hundred US residents took part in an online experiment in October 2020. They reported on their attitudes and intentions toward wearing masks in public. Then, they were randomly assigned to one of four social media exposure conditions (misinformation only vs. misinformation + correction vs. misinformation + correction + rebuke vs. misinformation + correction + rebuke + second correction) and reported their attitudes and intentions for a second time. They also indicated whether they would consider sharing the thread if they were to see it on social media and answered questions on potential mediators and covariates. RESULTS Exposure to misinformation has a negative impact on attitudes and intentions toward masking. Moreover, initial debunking of a false claim generally improves attitudes and intentions toward masking. However, this improvement is washed out by further exposure to false claims and debunking attempts. The latter result is partially explained by a decrease in the perceived objectivity of truth. That is, extended exposure to false claims and debunking attempts appears to weaken belief that there is an objectively correct answer to how people ought to behave in this situation, which in turn leads to less positive reactions toward masking as the prescribed behavior. CONCLUSIONS Health professionals and science advocates face an underappreciated challenge in attempting to debunk misinformation on social media. While engaging in extended debates with science deniers and other purveyors of bunk appears necessary, more research is needed to address the unintended consequences of such engagement.


Author(s):  
Caron L. Jack ◽  
Maurice Mars

Background: mHealth has the potential to facilitate telemedicine services, particularly in the developing world. Concern has been expressed about the confidentiality of health information that is relayed by mobile phone.Aim: We examined the habits and practices of mobile phone use by patients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Methods: We conducted a descriptive survey of two patient populations: 137 urban patients attending private practitioners and 139 patients in remote rural areas attending outpatient departments in Government-funded hospitals. The questionnaire covered several domains: demographics, mobile phone use, privacy and confidentiality and future use for health-related matters.Results: Two hundred and seventy-six patients completed the questionnaire. We found that a third of our participants shared their mobile phone with others, 24% lent their phone to others and more than half received health-related messages for other people. Mobile phone theft was common, as was number changing. Thirty-eight percent of the people were not able to afford airtime for more than a week in the past year and 22% of rural patients were unable to keep their phone charged. Mobile phone signal coverage was significantly worse in the rural areas than in urban areas.Conclusion: This study highlights the legal and ethical ramifications that these practices and findings will have on mHealth programmes in our setting. Healthcare providers and regulators will need to consider how patients use and manage their mobile phones when developing services and regulations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Manjula Venkataraghavan ◽  
Padma Rani ◽  
Lena Ashok ◽  
Padmakumar K

mHealth now, more than ever, need to be integrated with existing health systems to further contactless healthcare and health delivery solutions. Studies have reported that mHealth can ensure enhanced health outcomes, ample patient care and offer quality support for professional health workers. Several studies have examined the potential of mHealth from various stakeholder perspectives. However, a serious dearth of studies exists that examine the advantages and challenges of using this technology from mHealth users‘ perspective especially in the rural context. This study examines the use of mobile phones for health-related purposes from the perspective of rural people belonging to the South Indian state of Karnataka. The focus is on their use of mobile phone to seek medical assistance, health information and services. The study also seeks to understand the barriers and challenges faced by the rural folk in accessing health related services, information and assistance through mobile phones. A qualitative research approach using in-depth interviews as data collection tool, was applied. Mobile phones are reported as useful by the rural mobile phone users for receiving health-related messages as well as for accessing help during emergency health conditions. However, to enable equity of use of this technology in the rural scenario and also for the government to use this technology for providing responses during public health emergencies such as COVID-19, challenges such as the existing mobile phone infrastructure, digital illiteracy and perceived health concerns of mobile phone use among rural folk need to be addressed.


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