The mobile era began in New York City in 1973 when Motorola's Martin Cooper placed the first call from a handheld cellular phone and today, mobiles are a global necessity embedded in daily lives to an extent unimaginable a generation ago. They have extended human capabilities and increased convenience in countless ways but have also been implicated in societal ills ranging from teen depression to political polarization. Yet an important aspect of this global revolution is often overlooked, which is the enormous power of mobiles to boost productivity. In 1973 when the world's population was 4 billion, there were roughly 250 million landline phones mostly in rich countries with one in every 16 people on the planet enjoying access to immediate communication by phone. Today, in a world with twice as many people, nearly everyone has access to a mobile and I have seen this transformation first-hand during its first two decades when it was a bulky analog device but an even more exclusive privilege than landlines. When digital mobiles were introduced in Finland in 1991, however, I realized that this new technology could spread in a radically different way following Moore's Law. The cost of digital processing power had dropped dramatically since the 1960s and it was only a matter of time before even the poorest citizens in my native Bangladesh would be able to afford mobiles. I knew well that decreasing cost was one factor that would work in my favour but increased personal productivity as more people got mobiles was also an important aspect of this global revolution that was often overlooked.
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