Feature: Why we like to do everything on a mobile phone
Try and take my mobile phone from me, and I immediately become like Charlton Heston locked in an elevator with an anti-gun lobbyist: "You'll have to pry my phone from my cold, dead fingers!" Well, ok, maybe not quite *that* bad, but close enough.
Forget about mobile phones for a moment (I know, I was shocked I said it, too!). The world in general has gone so completely gadget crazy in the last 15 years, it's a wonder people meet other people and still get married and somehow manage to have babies. Gadgets are probably the most effective weapon against over-population that anyone ever came up with. Today, you can get a handheld device for pretty much ANY purpose you can think of. Pedometers, handheld GPS, e-book readers, audiobook players, DVD players, MP3 players, PSP Portables, insulin injecters, digital cameras, blood testers, blood pressure testers, pulse monitors, digital thermometers, handheld magnifiers, solar-powered talking Bibles, digital video cameras, medicine schedulers, TV's, handheld collision detectors, personal alcohol breath testers (why can't they come out with one that tells you if your breath just smells plain bad?), baby burping machines, walkie-talkies with a 3km range, calorie-burning counters, fish locaters, WIFI locaters, and yes, even a handheld device that can tell you based on your wife's monthly cycle, when the ideal time is to try and get pregnant.
See, I could save someone a lot of money on that last one. Just a piece of paper the husband would pull out to read. On one side, it says "Have you taken the garbage out today?" And on the other side, "Then there's no chance whatsoever that you will get your wife pregnant today".
But seriously, back on topic, so we like gadgets. We love computers. We love to tinker and access information that only we care about. And doing so in private. Whether that's such a healthy thing or not is a discussion for a different day.
So again, I ask, Why do we like doing everything on our mobile phones? The answer is pretty simple, really. Because I can do about half the things on that list above on my mobile phone. The only thing better than a handheld device is a smarter, more powerful handheld device that helps you get rid of some of your other handheld devices!
Putting aside the humor for, as blind and visually impaired people, I strongly believe that because our Smartphones have now become friendlier to us than the world in general when it comes to accessibility, that we gravitate to our handhelds even more so than the average technogeek. They like them. We absolutely rely on them. It's how we interface with the less-than-accessibly-ideal outside world.
What any of us wouldn't give to take a quick peek 10 years in the future to see what kind of goodies will be available to us then!
But we shouldn't lose sight (pun intended) of the fact that they are still just a tool. They are not a replacement for human contact, even if they're sometimes a placebo. We should be using our devices to find out how and where to go into the outside world to meet our friends, and not use them AS our friends!
In fact, if you're reading me on a mobile phone right this very moment.....don't stop, for goodness sake, and by all means, please go and find our sponsors adverts and click on them all. But after THAT, please seriously consider putting your phone on the charger, and go talk to your family for 10 or 15 minutes. If they don't recognize you, send them an MMS with a photo attached of the back of your head & a phone screen in front of it, and I'm sure the light bulb will go on.
Oh, sorry, I'm going to have to take this call...
Posted by Ted Mc at 4 Feb 2010, 4:19 PM 
Categories: Humor, Symbian, Accessibility, Miscellaneous, Internet
Tags: communication Gadgets Handheld devices smartphones technology
Categories: Humor, Symbian, Accessibility, Miscellaneous, Internet
Tags: communication Gadgets Handheld devices smartphones technology
I think that we also rely heavily on our phones because of the convenience of having everything at our finger tips in on device instead of ten single devices. But the problem with that is if you lose your phone you lose everything. I left mine at home one day and felt like I lost my arm! But I agree, we need to pull our heads out up from our screens and actually talk to people face to face before we forget how to interact with people at all.
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