A Smartphone in your hand embodies communication in the digital age. You no longer have to schedule your time to get information. With internet access on your Smartphone, you can send data (a message, an image, a graphic, music) and you can attach sophisticated data, that you have created or captured, to those communications. You can choose to access data sent to you at your convenience. The Smartphone provides you with choice, and you can choose to use it to manage your life efficiently. Yet, most people do not do that.
Most active users of Smartphones choose interruption when the phone signals them that new data has arrived. Especially when contacted by a friend who has made a comment, started a new chat thread, attached a funny joke or image, or a hint of a gossip update, most Smartphone users halt a conversation with a real person to engage their Smartphone. People have walked into moving traffic while they concentrate on trivia that someone sent them on their Smartphone. The Smartphone has become the favored industry sticking place to provide you with unending choice on how to communicate.
Tell your life story to family, friends, and total strangers on Facebook. Use Snapchat if you don’t want your mother to see the latest YouTube video that you posted. Organize your photographs on a Pinterest board. Tweet a comment on Twitter. Most Smartphone users actively use four or more applications (apps) on their Smartphone that will enable them to engage on the social media sites where their friends hang out. If Paul Revere had a Smartphone, we would have learned in school about Paul Revere’s Google, post, and tweet because he would not have had to ride anywhere. The Smartphone, a paradigm shift in communication, can subsume your life.
A communication tool should enhance, not become, your life. During the age of sail, ships delivered written communication by sailing across large bodies of water. A ship’s captain might communicate from offshore (or to another ship) by using flag semaphore to shorten the time needed to deliver a written message. Wireless telegraphy, applied in the late 19th century, also shifted the paradigm of communication. With it, the ship could deliver a communication without sailing at all. Imagine the time, cost, and effort that saved. Look at your Smartphone that way too. Use your Smartphone as intended to get more value from your daily life. #Tag1writer