The Positive and Negative Impact of COVID-19 Smartphone Dependency on Employee Job Performance

Literature Review

The term 'Smartphone' was coined several years ago, but its definition has evolved. It started when people only had mobile phones, also known as cellular phones. Smartphones are wireless communication systems that can receive and send optical or analog shortwave signals (Rouse, 2007). As a result, people can communicate with one another through these devices. Later, there were innovations and evolutions of the cell phone that made it smarter; gradually, people began calling it a 'smartphone'. The critical difference between a mobile phone and a smartphone is that “a smartphone is a mobile phone that provides more sophisticated processing capacity and accessibility than a contemporary basic feature phone (Litchfield, 2010, as cited in Pitichat, 2013). Also, the internet improves the capabilities of the smartphone. In his essay “Defining the Mobile,” Litchfield describes the smartphone as a device that ” runs an open (to new apps) operating system and is permanently connected to the internet” (Litchfield, 2010, as cited in Pitichat, 2013). This statement can be said to be accurate as a smartphone with internet access enables people to do many things with it.