Smartphones

Introduction

Before the introduction of smartphones things were a lot simpler such as turning on the television or meet up in person to socialize. Fortunately, smartphones drastically changed how people live with quality-of-life changes. For example, 2 decades ago if someone needed direction to visit a new place, you needed a map to travel to your destination. Today all smartphones offer a GPS that can read directions out loud, and offer reroutes unlike traditional maps. Furthermore, smart phones have enabled people to keep in better touch with people from straightforward phone calls to keep in touch over social media without the need to talk. Smartphones have been a fantastic benefit to society when assisting us in our daily lives. From tasks such as being a predominant learning tool in education to finding new forms of entertainment smart phones have certainly made an impact on society.

Types of smartphones

The progress of mobile phone development was empowered by a multitude of mechanical factors. As stated from the Pew Research Center, "Of the 90 percent of American adults who own a cellphone. The most popular types of smartphones are the iPhone, Windows phones, Android, and Amazon's Fire Phone" (Fortune). The most popular out of the four, iPhones uses iOS user interface to offer trademark features like FaceTime. Unlike most smartphones, Apple's digital assistant Siri offers users personal assistance namely answering most questions, Siri is able to make a phone upon request, and able to post to social media for you. Windows phone integrates Xbox, its own version of Windows 8, OneDrive, and Cortana that brings it all together. Designed by google and the second most popular type of smartphone, Androids offer far more app choices, universal chargers, durability, and able to remove the battery with ease. The youngest and the most unique smartphone out of the bunch, Amazon's Fire Phone has direct combability to Amazon Prime. "It comes preloaded with the Kindle app, Silk browser, Amazon Instant, Amazon Music and more. To purchase more apps, movies, TV shows or other features, you can access Amazon's online store" (Fortune). The most distinctive feature it provides is when the user points their phone camera at any object, the Fire Phone will process what it's looking at then describe what the object is.

Educational Impact

Positives

Even though there is plenty of public pressure against smart phone use in class, it would be naïve to ignore the benefits they bring to the table. Students that can use their smartphones in the classroom can make great use of them such as looking up information without very many difficulties. "In fact, the National Education Association reports that cell phones can be often cost effective for schools that cannot afford to purchase technology for all students" (Cirelli). Moreover, there has research that indicates smartphones provide an instrumental advantage for preparing for an exam. This is mostly due to students can take pictures of notes and formulas teachers write on the board rather than rushing to write the notes before a teacher erases them. Smartphones also helps motivate students to engage in the classroom by using educational games that can be connected from the students' phone. Every now and then it helps quiet kids come out of their shells and talk to other students in the classroom.

Negatives

Although smartphones today give students the ability to communicate with others and listen to music while they work, they can be a tremendously huge distraction or a crutch to students. “With smartphones starting to be readily available to more and more people, there’s a big chance that students can go on social networks, play mobile games, chat, shop, browse websites, listen to music and watch videos all while they’re in school” (BrightHub). Furthermore, a study from analytics firm Flurry stated that the average person spends 5 hours a day and as usage data goes up, the socialization people once had will only deteriorate in the long run and leave kids socially awkward. Another issue that that harms a student’s education is their notifications because of social media apps and news updates. A student can be very productive but can get easily distracted and at high risk for losing any focus they once had. The two biggest issues that go hand in hand is that students cheat by looking up answers on their phone or reliant on their smartphones to search for answers instead of critical thinking. Even though smartphones enable people with truly remarkable capabilities, end of the day it is a double edge sword.

Privacy

Aside from mobile phone companies tracking smartphone users, smartphone users are vulnerable to hackers. The best way to combat hackers is getting a VPN to shield yourself from others looking for your location. The two most common forms of smartphone tracking is the GPS that tracks your exact location and cell towers that break down one's location. Aside from potential hackers, phone companies and app suppliers are notorious for tracking because they sell information to other companies or marketing. At times companies will partner up with law enforcement to help track down or gather evidence against a suspect.

Ethical Questions

Data Sharing and Tracking

As smartphone tracking has a dramatic increase over the last decade, so has public distrust and brings up the conversation of is mass surveillance ethical. Another ethical concern is the Data privacy collection and Data privacy sharing. People's Data are being sold to countless other companies or shared without consent and if someone's personal privacy is compromised then the victim is left to deal with the trouble while other companies are not held accountable. Fortunately, the issue of privacy is not hopeless and laws such as the International Data Privacy Principles (IDPPs) have been passed to help conserve privacy guidelines. With the continual conversations of ethical tracking and data sharing, lawmakers are making it more apparent to hold companies and other organizations liable and to fight for protecting data.

Distraction in the Workplace

It is very obvious of how involved the use of smartphones is in our everyday lives and how they place a critical role in terms how we operate. Unfortunately smartphones can be a huge distraction as they as useful, especially in the workplace. From a various amount of studies the data has shown that looking at your phone repeatedly ruins the work mindset before the task is carried out. Typically it takes the average person nearly half an hour to gain back their concentration after a small distraction. What's more, "An Australian study conducted in 2018 found that a third (32%) of workers are regularly distracted by their smartphones and social media at work, while more than half of workers (51%) check their phones or social feeds up to ten times a day" (Colm). Employees getting distracted by their phone is a huge fear for managers because distracted driving is the leading cause of workplace mortality when working around tools, machinery, and other devices. This can not only lead to workers facing legal consequences, it can cause the domino effect of businesses being held responsible as a whole.

Cyberbullying

As the evolution of smartphones goes on, kids in todays era have obtained smartphones at a very young age and many kids have experienced some form of cyberbullying on social media. Its debatable that cyberbullying is more harmful to an individual because unlike facing down a bully in school, cyberbullies can attack someone at any given second. Since the beginning of 2021 it has been reported that 60% of teenagers have encountered a cyberbully online and 70% of teenagers have described fellow peers spreading gossip or misinformation about them. The leading cause of being a victim of cyberbullying was due to someone's physical appearance. The aftermath of getting cyberbullied can lead to serious damage to one's psyche and 64% of victims don't feel safe in school.

Cognitive Decline

During the last decade researchers have been starting to argue that prolong use of smartphones have reduces available cognitive capacity at rapid rates. During an experiment conducted by the University of Texas Austin, "The researchers found that participants with their phones in another room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who had kept their phones in a pocket or bag" (UT Austin). On top of that the researchers noticed the smartphone presence alone hampers the cognitive capacity of the people who had their phone on the desk. What's more some of research participants had experienced a decline in working memory. Although smartphones are a benefit to most people, researchers fear about the long term about cognitive ability.

Entertainment Television and Streaming Services

Prior to smartphones let alone cyberspace people could only watch video content through televisions and DVDs. Today there are hundreds of streaming services that are primarily geared to smartphone users to watch video entertainment wherever on the fly. The first of whom Netflix took the leap to innovate how people can enjoy entertainment on the go and other business companies who traditionally do not invest with streaming services such as Amazon to invest in the streaming world. There are apps in the entertainment whose sole purpose is to create or share tv shows, music, sports news, etc.

The gaming industry is starting to slowly invest more in the mobile entertainment industry. Gamers can play their favorite video games with friends from anywhere in the world on the go without issues. Games such as Fortnite has started to implement cross platform for they can play from other gaming consoles if a gamer so chooses. Today, “Approximately 44% of consumers are currently subscribing to an average of 3-5 paid streaming services, whereas only 7% are subscribing to as many as 7-10” (TransUnion). Researchers are now expecting a migration of streaming services on smartphones to be the primary source of entertainment. As a result of the entertainment revolution because of the smartphone industry pirated content have lost significant revenue. Streaming entertainment apps provide the same content while giving consumers the option to download entertainment for unlimited use at cheap costs. Furthermore, they improve quality and smart phones make them more attainable.

Easy access to information

Smartphones have revolutionized how people receive their information and consume so this leaves press associations to innovate because everyone does not consume television the same way people used to. Since 2013, 89% of all smartphone owners have access to thousands of news sources in the palm of their hands. News stations are developing apps and expanding onto social media platforms to share major current events. According to a custom Neilsen research study it proves that people are using news sites and new apps to gather information significantly more than television. With the cultural shift to smartphone news apps and access, news stations are constantly modifying how to make information easier to access and appealing more to younger generations.