Is The Smartphone Changing The World?
Background
Smartphones are replacing TV’s, PC’s, tablets and, of course, the mobile phone as the most loved technology as they scream into every corner of life.
We check them dozens of times each day and spend more time with them than any other device, as we talk and buy and play all at the nudge of a key.
Smartphones are changing how we do business too, as they transform and terrorise lacklustre industry giants and create new more vibrant minnows.
Their size and power and ability to keep us connected even when we’re alone and isolated mean we treat them more like a close friend than a remote technology.
Smartphones store gargantuan amounts of information about us – more than any other device – and often know more about our lives than those we live with and love.
They travel with us wherever we go, record what we do, track our habits and tell the story of our lives as we live moment-by-moment, day-by-day.
The details collected are shared and sold and shaped to influence our behaviours and choices, as they inform us, and inform on us, in equal measure.
Smartphones, unlike other technologies, are destructively addictive as we become dependent on them and suffer symptoms of withdrawal when parted.
The downside of sacrificing privacy doesn’t appear to matter as we ignore all negative implications and applications; the upside of faster connection with people and pictures and things of random interest is prized above all.
The future
Smartphones will provide us with access to information and expertise previously unknown, as they link us to never-ending pools of knowledge.
They create new ways of doing things, new businesses, new jobs, new industries and their potential is in its infancy and infinite in possibility.
Smartphones are playing a role in politics and in government, as they make information accessible to millions of disconnected and disenfranchised citizens.
They influence what we do and how we do it in a way few other technologies can, as they enable and encourage a new dimension of action and interaction.
Smartphones reside not only in our hands and in our pockets but also, increasingly, in our brains as they extend our reach and expand our intellect.
Goodness knows they have transformed the world in their first decade of life and will, no doubt, change it beyond our capacity to conceive in their adolescence.
So, smartphones are changing the world and changing us too, as they become as much a part of us as our need to breathe and eat and sleep.
