A hundred years from now the world will look at what was left behind from 2011 and wonder what life was like. In scientific studies a cultural artifact is an item produced by humans that furnishes cultural clues about the people who used it. Over time the artifact may change in how it is seen and used. The cell phone as a cultural artifact has come to improve and change various established types of contact in today’s culture (Nielson, 2010). Today the world uses technology in almost everything that it does. Many different types of scholars have advocated the study of technologies as artifacts (Sterne, 2006). The cell phone will be a cultural artifact in its own right. No modern cultural artifact personifies the intellect and the disquieting overindulgence of capitalism as noticeably as the cell phone (Rauch, 2005). It is an item that people work on and the cell phone also works for them. It is used to socialize, idolize, and has many advanced technologies that are used and preformed on them. Consider it a result of social and technical processes.
In many urbanized societies like the United States and the rest of the Americas, Europe, and Asia, the cell phone has developed into a scientific experiment or a haven for taxing the confines of technological union. It almost seems a shame to call it a telephone today because it is so much more than that. It can be used as a computer, a gaming tool, still cameras, video cameras, email systems, text messengers, carrier of business data, and so much more (Rauch, 2005). The definition of culture is a shared set of practices, standards, ideals and symbols. Currently the statistics show that more than two billion individuals own cellular phones, yes that is two 2,000,000,000! For the most part they are inexpensive and are depicted as glamorous because the user can personalize or embellish their phones, creating other industries that can make this art for phones.
This makes the cell phone a sort of art in itself because the user can choose their type of phone and decorating or changing it acts as a sort of individual statement. The fact that they are everywhere has a foundation for modifying cultural standards. One odd change in cultural norms would be the change in priority of who a person wants to communicate with. It seems that more people prefer to communicate with people that are somewhere else rather than the ones they are currently sharing space with. Yet, the moral principles of this new action are not unanimously approved. If this is not enough, now individuals are watching television on their cell phones, to detach themselves farther from crowded conditions and prioritize their consideration.
If a person believes that the cell phone is not having an effect on today’s culture all they have to do is read news articles or watch television from around the world that show how a cell phone is aiding people and their causes. Cell phones have been credited with helping to augment the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine. In France, demonstrators used text messaging to organize their actions and stay away from police. Also, in China, text messaging played a prominent role in the anti-Japanese demonstrations (Rauch, 2005). In Europe, text messaging is often used for political purposes, as well as, spreading false information. It is used to disrupt opponents as much as to mobilize supporters (Rauch, 2005).
Then there are the teenagers of 2011, every one of them either has a cell phone or wants one. Cell phones have dominated teenage culture. They have become an essential part of the ever new technology which continuously attacks teens’ lives (Radical Parenting, 2011). Now the convenient cell phones reveal much of a teenager’s position in the high school pecking order: social standing, and fashion. It almost seems that a cell phone in a person’s hand holds some kind of energy all its own. People cannot just let their cell phone sit and wait for it to ring instead it empowers them to go to new levels of communication (Radical Parenting, 2011). Philosopher Langdon Winner stated that; “that technological artifacts ‘embody specific forms of power and authority’ (Sterne, 2006, p. 1).”
Before the cell phone came the land line phone. In the 1870s, the inventor Alexander Graham Bell invented a machine that could broadcast speech electrically, the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was really just trying to improve the telegraph machine and the accomplishment with the telephone came as a direct result of his effort to develop a better telegraph. The communications possibilities enclosed in his exhibit of having the ability to "talk with electricity" were far more important than anything that merely increased the potential of a dot-and-dash system (Bellis, 2011). From there the first mobile-radio-telephone service gets its start in St. Louis in 1945. The system was contained, the use of six channels that add up to 150 MHz. Then in 1947 AT&T came out with the first radio car phones that were used only on the highway between New York and Boston. These were also known as push-to-talk phones. The next advancement came in 1956 with the first real car phones, not car radios. These car phones still used push-to-talk however; these phones really did work (Keith, 2004).
In 1964 the need to use push-to-talk operators became a thing of the past. For the first time customers could dial phone numbers directly from their cars. This system gets an upgrade in 1969 to 450 MHz and this then becomes standard in the United States. Things progress in 1971 with the proposal by AT&T to build the modern-day mobile-phone system. Interestingly, the FCC gets involved and divides cities into “cells”. Next in 1973, Dr. Martin Cooper invented the first personal handset while working for Motorola. From there the FCC starts to encourage cell phone companies to push forward the cellular idea and AT&T adapted its own cellular plan for the city of Chicago (Keith, 2004). As cities grew they had more needs to communicate and this brought cell technology to the forefront.
Knowing where the cell phone originated may give insight to where it will go in the future. Today's cell phones can readily send e-mail, browse the Web, and keep people in touch with acquaintances and family via voice or text message. Future cell phones will be even more advanced with more menus, and make a seamless transition into portable game devices, better televisions, and offer credit cards. Every new cell phone starts out as just a wild dream in some designer’s mind, so what will they come up with next (Arar, 2006). A glimpse into future technology seems breathtaking and irrationally far away. But there are some changes that are already being worked on for the cell phone.
First, there are MIT people who have been working with lithium-ion technology, and claim that charging a cell phone may only take mere seconds. Also, they may soon be made of a rubber-like “shape memorizing” material, that will make it bendy, flexible technology. Next, cell phones may work like a quick pass credit card, they will not have to be swiped but brought close to a sensor, which will be linked to the bank, and then charged to the account. Also, there is technology that can send boarding passes to phones complete with a 2-D barcode that can be scanned to allow passengers on planes, Continental airline is already trying this out (Arar, 2006). There is no denying that the cell phone is a cultural artifact, where it will grow from here is limited only by people’s imagination. It very well could transform into a new better technology that only the people of the future will understand. However, as they look back at 2011 they will see the overwhelming influence that it has had on the world today.

References
Arar, Y. (2006). The Future of Cell Phones. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/126854/the_future_of_cell_phones.html
Bellis, M. (2011). The History of the Telephone - Alexander Graham Bell. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/telephone.htm
Keith, R. D. (2004). The Cell Phone Timeline. Retrieved from http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall04/keith/history1.htm
Nielson, P. I. (2010). The Cell Phone--A Modern Cultural Artifact. Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/the-cell-phonea-modern-cultural-artifact-a275240
Radical Parenting. (2011). Cell Phones and Consequences: How Mobile Phones Effect Teenage Culture. Retrieved from http://www.radicalparenting.com/2009/06/23/cell-phones-and-consequences-how-mobile-phones-effect-teenage-culture/
Rauch, P. (2005). Cell phone culture. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/cell_phone_culture.htm
Sterne, J. (2006). The mp3 as cultural artifact. Retrieved from http://sterneworks.org/mp3.pdf