Thriving at the speed of sound: Mobile phone use amongst youngsters in Kerala

Need to transfer money urgently in the wee hours of the morning? Not a problem. Want the lyrics to that melodious song in Enthiran a day after the music release? In a jiffy. Today’s youth in Kerala have an in-hand, serves-all solution to any plausible dilemma; trivial or serious. And it comes handy too - tucked comfortably in your back pocket and just a finger’s touch away. The mobile phone usage in Kerala has reached sky high and has transformed itself into becoming the lifeblood of the new generation.

Leaving the rest of the Indian states far behind, Kerala today boasts of a teledensity of 1.7 million. To the average Keralite today, mobile phones are more than a medium to make calls or to send out festive messages. Since 1997, when mobile phones first entered the markets of Kerala, the mobile phone has endeared itself to even the fishing residents in Kerala. Today in Kerala, a business man on-the-move can use his Blackberry service to stay connected to his business network at ground level.

A homemaker can use the m-banking service on her Sony Ericsson mobile phone to pay her bills from the comfort of her own home. A youngster can stay connected to his friends through his favorite social networking site on his new Nokia E series. A student can download the latest sample question papers to an upcoming Government interview on his Samsung Omnia. That is just to name a few.

Of course, the mobile phone in itself is not impervious to this radical change. Mobile phones today are no longer just mobile phones. They are smart-phones, embedded with technology vivacious enough to interact and transact materials which were previously monopolized by computers and papers. Amongst the youth of today, it is a much preferred and favored medium of networking.

The mobile phone of a typical youngster in Kerala comes packed with an Android Operating System, up to 12 mega pixel camera with a 10x Optical Zoom, state of the art mobile games and one-touch access to preloaded social networking sites. The new generation in Kerala speaks the language of technology; privacy and inhibitions are a thing of the past. Convenience or Extravagance? That's just rhetorical question to the fast-paced, rapidly evolving youth of God’s very own country.