To deal with the risk factors such as individual to the individual transmission of coronavirus, different national governments have introduced broad lockdown measures. For example, social distancing and preventing further contamination. 

Now, this lockdown has had a huge impact on our daily lives including the supply chain sector, healthcare, education, social, and disruption of the economy. Currently, the utilization of smartphones has increased. People want to stay updated about the pandemic, be it news and announcements, without leaving their home. 

Further, multiple tasks are being performed via a smartphone. Here, we have explored the challenges faced by the people during this lockdown and how smartphones make the tasks easy for them.

Smartphones, making our Lives Easier During Lockdown

A smartphone provides you with the ability to run software applications, OS, web browsing, and many other such tasks. They provide your required information in a useful way. Nowadays, smartphones come with lots of features, for example, Global Positioning Services (GPS), Video Recording, Sending, and Receiving Email for various purposes. 

During this pandemic, smartphones made a huge positive impact on different influenced areas, for example, social life, education system, banking, and so on.

Let’s get to know more about them.

  • Healthcare & Medicine

It will be a challenging task for many patients to visit the hospital amid this COVID-19 pandemic. To help all of these patients, most of the hospitals have started online services and that includes the telemedicine outpatient services. Through smartphone technology, patients can easily get the service. 

Apart from this, SMT also allows remote consultation, reassurance, and further planning. Virtual Fracture Clinics (VFC) are more up-to-date methods of surveying and overseeing musculoskeletal injuries. 

You can use your smartphone to undertake the VFC as well as it can be used to monitor orthopaedic conditions like osteoarthritis in this pandemic. This is really helpful when patients cannot travel because of the lockdown restrictions.

According to the Tertiary referral studies, the smartphone helps the individual to avoid unnecessary visits to the hospital. Furthermore, it also reduces the stress of a missed diagnosis,  fractures or any other incidents. 

  • Counselling

There’s been a negative impact of ‘self-isolation’ and ‘protecting’ on mental health, leading to depression and low state of mind, recognized during this COVID-19 pandemic. Through smartphones, you get access to a lot of games that you can play to deduce your stress. Moreover, smartphones can help in counselling as well as mental health advice and provide support to the patients.

  • Education & Training

As said earlier, COVID-19 has had a tremendous negative impact on the education system. As almost all the scheduled workshops, seminars, conferences, and the other educational training and activities have been cancelled. Thus, the quantity of online courses known as ‘online classes’ has expanded enormously and effectively through smartphones. 

All the educational institutions are close and teachers have the only option left and that is to provide their lectures online. With the help of smartphones, students can easily attend lectures and continue their studies.

  • Group Counseling

During this lockdown, smartphones introduced some new applications where a group of people can consult about their health conditions. They can use applications like Skype, ZOOM. Here, they can discuss how to maintain social distancing. Besides, they can also give their valuable opinion to others so that people can maintain precautions and stay safe.

  • Monitoring

It is essential for the hospital staff to know the accurate location of the infected people. Smartphones make this task easier for them. By using GPS, they can easily locate the current location of the patient. Apart from this, the mobile data can give access to the population estimates as well as other mobility information. This crucial information can be further used by multiple sectors in order to understand COVID-19 trends. 

  • 5G Technology

If you have a smartphone with 5G technology, your smartphone will assist you to fight against this virus by informing you i) early warning & alerts ii) data dashboards iii) tracking & predictions. Also, your smartphone makes you aware of the possible treatments. So, you don’t need to reach the hospital and you can take the necessary safety precautions while staying at your home.

  • Online Shopping

It is not at all surprising that the pandemic might be changing your shopping habits for good. As during this lockdown, the government ordered people to stay at home. Thus, people are now taking an interest in online shopping. Everyone’s favourite supermarket app is available in their smartphone’s App store. So, with just a click, you can book your order and the groceries will be delivered at your doorstep. 

Besides that, due to the lockdown, most of the restaurants are closed. On your smartphone, you can download several food delivery apps, such as Swiggy, Deliveroo, and Zomato. You just need to click on your favourite food and they deliver your food at your doorstep. 

Moreover…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, smartphones help people to avoid face to face contact and maintain social distance. Also, during this lockdown, the smartphone provides various features so you can stay home and get your necessary things.