Usage and Impact of Smart Phones Among Youth: Digital India in Reality

Abstract

India is moving quickly towards its dream of ‘Digital India’ to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. As a result, mobile penetration in India is creating records every year in the global market. Simultaneously the social media platforms are pulling mobile users towards its attractive content to mint money. Is growing mobile usage a real indicator of digital India? Do these smartphones are really making their users smart enough? The growing market for smartphones is a positive indicator for growth in communication networks but it is also hard to ignore the impact of smartphones on mental health and cyber theft. Therefore, this study was designed to find out not only the usage of smartphones among youth but also their impact on their mental health and perceptions towards cyber security. A mixed methodology was adopted to meet the set objectives. The study reveals that there is a huge usage of smartphones among youth and they all are aware about its effects on their mental health and threats to cyber security, but they are not able to resist using mobile phones daily as it has become part of their life, and they lack cyber security knowledge though they are aware of cybercrimes in society. So, it is important to understand that digital India is not about smartphones and technology but it is about producing smart Individuals