In the earlier post Patient data breaches in the BYOD and BYOC era, it is evident that risks to patient data are growing as mobile devices pose significant risks for privacy incidents for healthcare organisations, providers and entities responsible for safeguarding protected health information (PHI), such as medical records
Further to that post, I wish to expand and take this subject of risks to patient data into more than one post, continuing with this second post on the BYOD and BYOC era – but this time in this post, on what is a mobile device exactly.
But before that, I have no doubt and you would probably or even agree with me with me that mobile devices like smartphone and tablet increase personal.productivity and mobility as you can discover from this image.
Source: cropped with Adobe Photoshop, from an infographic found at ClickSoftware Enterprise Workforce Mobility
(view a larger image in a new tab of the current window when you click this image)
This trend will only continue given the continuous influx of increasingly powerful, inexpensive smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon is posing a direct and significant challenge for IT everywhere and in particular healthcare providers.
So what is a mobile device exactly?
Mobile devices include familiar things you carry with you(portable) like thumb drives, smartphones, external hard drives, tablets and laptops. Does this list end here? Researching on mobile devices for this post, the list does not end there as the term “mobile devices” is still a non-definitive term, due to the rapid expansion and evolution of portable devices connected to the Internet.
Smura, Kivi, and Toyli (2009) believe a mobile device must meet three criteria:
- ability to make voice calls
- physical size of device
- the operating system.
Smura et al.’s definition however already appears to be outdated as mobile voice telephony has been decreasing in volume and duration since 2007 (Thompson, 2010), as we instead increasingly use our mobile devices for text messaging (SMS), emailing, and accessing Internet-enabled apps or sites. Some of us also use the immensely popular iPod Touch, which allows users to interact with Internet content but does not offer the ability to make phone calls.
The other criterion by Smura et al. is size, the smaller the size the greater the portability and ease of access in multiple environments. What entails being “mobile” is then their relative size, since mobile devices are smaller in size, more portable, and can be accessed with ease and flexibility. This is the core difference between mobile devices and other portable, Internet-enabled devices such as laptops and netbooks.
So can digital cameras, e-readers, and game consoles be also called mobile devices?
Devices like digital cameras, e-readers, and game consoles support one core functionality (i.e., photography, reading, or gaming), while mobile devices, on the other hand are portable computing devices running multiple software.
Hence, the inclusion of operating system(OS) by Smura et al. as a defining trait is not a central characteristic. The OS helps distinguish between devices like digital cameras, e-readers, and game consoles that are “limited, for specific purpose” versus mobile devices that are mufti-functional. The key difference between them is single versus multiple functionality.
One other place I looked at, was into Wikipedia. We usually run to Wikipedia for answers to anything we wish to know. I ran up to Wikipedia too and looking up Wikipedia’s definition, a mobile is “small, hand-held computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard and less than 2 pounds (0.91 kg)”. Wikipedia lists calculators, digital cameras, and MP3 players as mobile devices. This definition seems to entail pretty much any portable electronic device, as even Glen Farrelly blogged in his blog Webslinger.
We looked at how voice telephony, portability and accessibility due to size, computing power, operating systems, Internet connectivity, and functionality increasingly blur distinctions between mobile devices.
It is obvious there are overlaps across technologies and Internet access, appears now to be the defining point in distinguishing mobiles which are portable computing devices running multiple software (e.g., contacts, calendars, document processing, file management, etc.) and offering a range of mufti-modal inputs and outputs, including text/SMS, email, instant messaging/chat, voice telephony, photography, video, applications, and mobile Web browsing.
Glen Farrelly offers the definition of a mobile device which includes smartphones (e.g. BlackBerry, iPhones, Androids, Nokia.), tablets, (e.g. iPad, PlayBook, etc..) and networked portable media player and personal digital assistants (e.g. iPod) as a device that has:
- the ability to connect to the Internet
- supports user input and interaction,
- offers multiple functionality
- and has the physical size of a tablet computer or smaller
References:
Webslinger, glenfarrelly.blogspot.com
Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device
