The Safety Provided to Use by Our Cell Phones

A 12-year-old child is walking home alone. She falls and gashes herself on a sharp piece of metal. It starts to bleed profusely. She knows she needs to get help, but she has no way to contact the emergency department or her parents. No one is around, so by the time she’s gotten home she has lost a lot of blood. She needs to stay overnight in the hospital to recover. When a person has a phone this problem would be eliminated. They can call for help in an emergency. Two hundred forty million 9-1-1 calls are made each year in the USA. Think about how many lives that saved! Cell phones are a necessary item to stay safe and healthy. Overall, cell phones provide many great services which help society as a whole. People with speaking impairments benefit from texting-related apps, phones keep people safer in an emergency, and they keep family and friends in touch with each other.One way that phones benefit society is that they are necessary to keep people safe. One way that phones keep people safe is that smartphones are used to alert people of kidnappings, bad weather, and more (Purewall). Knowing what the weather is like can keep you from being outside in a winter coat on a 100-degree day. People can be alerted to tornados, strong, dangerous rains, and other problems that may affect their health and well being. Knowing about local kidnappings can increase the chance that the child will be found. For example, Amber Alerts send out a message to every phone when a child goes missing. With many people looking for a weird “parent and child” group, someone is bound to notice something and alert the police. This also means that the police’s job is easier because instead, for instance of 114 cases that need investigating there may be only 14. This means they have more time and effort to focus on the other cases they have. “Smartphones are also handy in a disaster, such as the 2011 Japan earthquake, where they were used for communication (the landlines were down) and search and rescue operations” (Purewall). Imagine how many people might not have been saved because they couldn’t call for help on their phone. Knowing where someone is in an emergency is very important.

Not only does it tell emergency responders where the person may be if they call, text or other do types of signaling with their phone, but it can verify if the person in danger is now safe. Texting someone for a check-in tells people that you are in no harm. This can also reassure families as they don’t need to worry themselves about a panic. The rescue workers also benefit from this as they instead of wasting time looking in all the different spots, they can know where there are safe people and where there are injured or stuck people. As you can see phones keep people safe in an emergency and in other dangerous situations. Phones greatly help the speech impaired which positively affects the society as a whole. People with speech difficulties benefit from texting and other typing-related apps (Purewall). For example, a person who can’t speak can text so that they can communicate with the rest of the world. The world before smartphones must have been a bleak one for people with speech difficulties. Back when there were very few people who had the time or the money to become educated, life must have been very difficult for people with speech difficulties. Now with the fact that they can access schools and other education programs, texting, Facebook, Instagram, and other apps/websites they can show off their personality. The person can also ask for help from the people closest to them by just typing in what they want to say and hitting send. This affects their lives greatly because they can now talk to doctors easily. If the speech loss was caused by an illness they can communicate to their doctor if it has gotten worse, better, or they think it’s staying the same. They can communicate if a medication needs to be prescribed differently. Clearly, this keeps people comfortable and healthy as it helps the impaired.Furthermore, cell phones are beneficial because they allow parents and children to safely and quickly communicate. “Walking home, alone, at night, through a bad part of town is not nearly as dangerous as it was 10 years ago... personal safety apps like bSafe have additional features, such as “Follow me” live GPS trace” (Purewall).

This app allows friends and family track you on their phone and sees what time you said you were going to be home. For example, if you are home late, your mom, dad, friend, neighbor, etc. can see where you are to see if you are late or if something’s wrong. This greatly increases the chance of finding you if you are lost or kidnapped. While this does not happen often, one time is too many, so if a person can be tracked and found that is amazing. An app like this can also help people while driving for a very long time. A person can find their friends and make sure that they know if and were someone is if they get in an accident. Phones help kids keep in contact with their family when not at home (Crowe). When a child has divorced parents it can be difficult for them to keep in touch with both of their parents, especially if they live far apart from each other. A phone can let the child and their parents talk to each other so that they can make sure they’re safe wherever they are. Children are dependent on adults. When going away from their family to school or for camp, a kid might need to ask permission to go downtown or call to update their parents on what’s happening at the camp or the vacation. Sometimes it could be the other way around. A kid is a home and the parents are away for an hour or two and someone tries to get in, there's a fire, earthquake, etc. The child can call for help and call their parents. As you can see this keeps the family connected with each other and safe.As you can see cell phones are an incredibly important tool to stay healthy, comfortable, and safe. Having cell phones keeps the speech impaired included in our society. Children and adults are kept safe with the ability to call 9-1-1, and family and friends are kept updated on what’s happening.