Fifty years have passed since the world’s first cell phone call — and it’s been an eventful five decades, with momentous repercussions: On 3 April, 1973Motorola’s Martin Cooper dialed the number of his competitor, Joel Engel, to inform him that the race was over. Cooper was standing in New York's Sixth Avenue and calling the Bell Labs in New Jersey from a brick-sized cell phone, not much different from the regular house phone — minus the cord, the BBC writes, recapping the 50-year history of the device that has become an extension of the human body.

The mass sale of mobile phones only happened 10 years later, initially retailing at hefty price tags — a Motorola phone in the late ‘80s would set you back nearly USD 500. And their sole purpose was to enable voice communication on the go. But these devices soon became obsolete as newer models offered much more than cell phone inventors had originally planned.

Enter ”technological bundling”: Over the years, mobile phones have become our single most indispensable possession. And look at the casualties: Torches, personal cameras, music players, and GPS devices are but some of the devices that have now been replaced by apps on most phones today.

The benefits are huge, but at what cost? Cell phones have been revolutionary in incredibly diverse, innumerable ways. From supporting swift communication tofacilitating education through innovative applications, and even helping farmers with irrigation schedules — the power and advantages of technology permeate our life. But concerns are often voiced about addiction to smartphones and the ill-effects of social media on impressionable young kids who are now accessing this technology earlier as the years go by.

More people are rethinking their workweek schedules, mostly to spend more time with family members, enjoy hobbies and leisurely activities, or simply to reduce the pace of their otherwise stressful lives, the Wall Street Journal writes. And we’re not talking about an eccentric niche of employees: As of last February, almost 22 mn Americans were opting to work part-time — an additional 2 mn people since the previous year. Across the pond, scaling back the traditional workweek is also gaining traction. A four-day workweek experiment conducted in the UK was so successful, participants said they would never go back to their traditional employment arrangements.

Egypt is getting in on the shift, too: Tech startup BasharSoft trialed a four-day workweek last year, with impressive results: The company said that 89% of its employees reported higher productivity, 82% said they were better able to manage their time, and 93% experienced lower levels of stress.

Science approves: While structure and discipline are important, the traditional structure of an 80-hour work week spent entirely at the office is not necessarily imperative, research has found. According to a 2019 study by sociology professor Brendan Burchell, people performing as little as one to eight hours of paid employment per week had the same improvements in their mental health as people working upwards of 48 hours per week, the WSJ reports.

There is a potential downside to working less, though: In the plainest terms — fewer hours put in mean less bills in the bank, which is not an affordable option for everyone. While surgeons may be able to get by with shorter days, not all jobs are compensated enough to support a more comfortable pace. Also, health ins. and other work-related benefits are not always readily available when people opt out of more hours, which some researchers suggest could be remedied by making less-intense work schedules the norm throughout entire organizations.

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