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By Munir Daya
Technology advancements have taken communication a long way forward. In Tanzania, statistics published a few years ago stated that over 97per cent of the population has access to a mobile phone in an emergency. This does not mean that 97per cent of the population own cell phones but they have access to one from friends, relatives and office mates if they really have to use a phone.
Mobile phones have taken the country by storm where ironically it is estimated that only one in eight houses in the country have electricity.
A visitor to Tanzania could be forgiven for thinking that the main business here is that of mobile phones because most of the billboards are related to cell phone technology and marketing. Over the last few years, billboards from different cell phone and Internet companies have completely taken over the landscape.
At face value it would appear that almost everybody owns a cell phone. In the corporate world it is almost impossible to move without one and the same applies to social circles and other sectors.
Street vendors, watchmen, domestic workers, office messengers, students and home makers now commonly have their own cell phone numbers – many even have more than one number in order to be able to caller other people cheaper on the same network.
For the common man cell phones are a savior. When I have to buy coconuts I simply call a vendor and within the next few hours these are delivered to my office. The same man delivers the fruit to different people because he has no fixed place to sell these. He says he has lost out a number of times by selling on the beachfront because municipal authorities have confiscated the fruit from him. In Zanzibar, fishing is one of the mainstays of the economy. Fishermen supply restaurants and hotels with fish for the many tourists who visit the island. Many fishermen now carry mobile phones and use them while they are out at sea to check market prices.
If there are too many fish in Zanzibar, they sail to Dar es Salaam to get better prices to make more money. Phones also serve another more vital use, allowing fishermen in trouble to call for assistance.
Mobile networks are so dominant that one can get a signal in the smallest villages and places that are even far away from civilisation like the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro or the game reserves in northern Tanzania. It has become a tool for business development and is allowing access to population segments that were previously unreachable.
However, scientists are discovering an unexpected side effect of cell phones. According to recent findings, they say that the higher the digital input we receive, the less time our brains get to process new information, learn and become creative.
What they are saying is that the more we email, tweet, post messages on Face book or read blogs, the less creative we become.
With the advent of ever more capable mobile devices, people are online all the time, everywhere.
You see people surfing, texting or BBMing while waiting in line for a bus, while exercising in the gym, while going up or down in an elevator and practically everywhere. The opportunities to make the tiniest window of time productive or entertaining become almost endless.
To think creatively and to be more efficient in planning one’s business one needs to be away from a cell phone.
Creativity is healthy for our own fulfillment and for the success of society. Our brains need to have relaxed time not influenced by gadgets.
When we played as children we talked about our careers and ourselves and about the little that we knew was then happening in the world.
Children nowadays check out the status of their friends on Face book, talk on cell phones and there is a strange loneliness because ongoing communication is more often with someone who is not next to you.
Modern and better communication is great for different purposes but moderation and responsibility are required to really enjoy it.
So when they launch a waterproof mobile device decline the offer because you need the precious offline moments under the shower for your own thoughts.
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