Efecto del Clima Psicosocial y de la Personalidad en el Síndrome del Quemado en

Mobile telephony proves to be globally one of the most successful and widespread communication technologies. As a BITKOM study (quoting EITO findings) revealed, in 2002 the number of mobile links exceeded 1 billion; among them, 70 % used the GSM standard. Also, the number in Internet users was increasing with 100 million every year. In 2003, more than 700 mill Internet users were expected. The fastest diffusion rate was encountered in DSL channels, with a 71% yearly increase. Also, 23 million households used the cable modem for fast Internet access. And last, but not least, through UMTS, new data applications in mobile telephony became of interest70. More recent data from the same source, (BITKOM report

2005, Daten zur Informationsgesellschaft. Status Quo und Perspektiven Deutschlands im Internationalen Vergleich), indicate that more than 1.6 billion people use mobile phones

internationally.

Also, in Germany, mobile phone ownership and usage has been dramatically increasing. More and more people were recognizing the importance of the technology for social and economical spheres of daily life. As presented in Jahresbericht der Regulierungsbehörde für

Telekommunikation und Post, at the end of 2002, 59.1 million persons used the services of

mobile phone operators D1, D2, E1, and E2. A penetration rate of 71.7 percent and a yearly increase of 2.9 million users were reached. Internationally, the current penetration rate in Germany was higher than in the USA (47.7 Percent), Japan (62,1 Percent) and Eastern Europe (30 Percent), but it was with 5% under the west-European average penetration (77%). Another 31% of potential users, expecting to buy a mobile phone in the next two years, were foreseen. This growth is quite impressive, given that in 1992 the penetration rate was of 1.2% and in 1999 of 28.5%. In 2004, 71.3 millions users and a penetration rate of 86.4 % were recorded (Jahresbericht der Regulierungsbehörde für Telekommunikation und Post, 2004). More recent research71 forecasts a further increase of the penetration rate of mobile telephony to 91 % in 2005 and to 95 % in 2006 (BITKOM report, 2005).

70

Wege in die Informationsgesellschaft. Status quo und Perspektiven Deutschlands im Internationalen Vergleich, BITKOM, 2003.

71

Bitkom report 2005: Daten zur Informationsgesellschaft. Status Quo und Perspektiven Deutschlands im

In 2002, 52% of mobile users employed pre-paid cards, a fact somehow disadvantageous for providers because they don’t generate turnover. This percent remained almost constant until 2004 (50.5%). In Germany, the most important network providers have been: T-Mobile (T- Mobile Deutschland); Vodafone D2; E-Plus Mobilfunk; O2 (VIAG Interkom) and Group 3G (Quam). However, the number of service providers is greater: Cellway Kommunikationsdienste; D-Plus Telecommunications; Debitel; Drillisch; E-Plus Service; Hutchison Telecom; Mobilcom; NetzTel Plus; RSL Com; Talkline; Tangens; TelePassport; and VictorVox.

The successful domestication of mobile telephony has been proven by the way that users acknowledged its importance and social and economical consequences. In 2001, Forsa Society for Social Research and Statistic Analyses ltd. Berlin examined, on behalf of IZMF, the mobile usage behavior of Germans, focusing on the meaning and importance they attached to the mobile phone in various spheres of daily life. Indeed, 1005 citizens older than 14 years were questioned with the help of computer-assisted telephone interviews. Respondents were selected through a systematic probabilistic sampling procedure, which guaranteed that each person had the same chance to fall into the sample. Thus, the sample selection ensured a representative cross section of the German population. This study has confirmed the integration of the wireless communication technology in the every-day life of Germans. A significant difference in the amount of mobile usage was identified between West and East Germans, with West Germans using the mobile service more heavily than the former East Germans. In addition, the study found out that the frequency of mobile phone usage decreased with age: 84 per cent of users fell under 30 years of age. Other differences appeared between the individual income brackets: the rich performed more mobile calls than the poor. Also, employed persons, particularly independent professionals tended to use the mobile service more than the other occupational categories. Nevertheless, there were no relevant differences between urban and rural users. When asked about the importance of the mobile phone for the professional and the private sphere, one third of users agreed that the mobile phone was important and very important for work/profession. A fifth of respondents thought that mobile phones were less important in the professional sphere, and more than two fifths of them attributed to the mobile phone even no importance for profession. East Germans estimated the importance of the mobile phone for the work life to be even higher than West Germans did, as 83 % of the employed users recognized that the mobile was important for their professional life, while 15% of clerks considered the mobile phone to be important in their profession. However, in general, the mobile phone was considered more important for the private life than for the professional use (For half of all Germans, the cell phone was important or even very important in the private life, and only one tenth of German users believed that this did not have any meaning in the private life). For the East German users, the private usage of the Handy emerged as even more important than for the West Germans. The private use of the mobile phones was highly valued by workers and less favorably rated by independent professionals. The cell phone had even a greater private importance for retired people as well as for pupils and students than for the employed persons.

Also, in the FORSA study, non-users were asked to assess the importance of the mobile phone in their lives. It came out that two thirds of non-users stated that the cell phone was important and/or very important for them. Only a little more than one tenth of the non-users attributed no importance to the cell phone.

The study also revealed the perception of a high significance of the technology for the German economy. In the estimation of the economic importance of the mobiles, there were hardly any differences between the different occupation and age groups.

Three quarters of the respondents considered the mobile phone to be very useful in emergency situations. In particular, 21 percent welcomed the possibility of getting assistance in distress with the help of a cell phone, with only 3 percent attributing to the mobile phone a small importance in these situations. Additionally, each second German considered the mobile phone very important for medical remote diagnostics. Only a tenth of the interviewed population assessed the possibility of remote diagnostics over the mobile phone as less important. Employees, clerks and professionals, pensioners and pupils, young and old citizens equally considered the employment of the mobile phone in medicine for remote diagnostics important.

Overall, the majority of Germans felt that they received sufficient information from mobile phone operators, with less than a third of them expressing a need to learn more about the mobile phone. Those who complained about information deficits would like to have known more about tariffs and contract conditions. In East Germany, the information need about tariffs was found to be even greater than in the west of the country. This issue was followed by the information about health risks: one fifth of those who felt insufficiently informed would like to have learned more about health risks.