All About Symbian - Symbian, Nokia and S60 unwrapped.
Phones to rule us all?
Published by Ewan Spence at 10:56 UTC, July 24th 2009
As I head out the door, I turn back, unlock the house, and sheepishly pick up my smartphone from the office desk. Probably a scene that we've all done once or twice, but have you ever wondered how much freedom the mobile phone actually takes away from you? In my musings below, I keep my tongue firmly in cheek and paranoia firmly in my brain. Read on...
You can always be found, no matter how hard you try; you've no reason to not take pictures of interesting things; you can keep working on that spreadsheet when stuck in the tube; you can't even avoid calls from your work (unless you're one of Gordon Brown's aides who allegedly deleted their mobile numbers from his mobile before going on the summer holidays). In short, the mobile phone has affected the life and tethered itself to more people than ever before, and that's a bad thing.
Now this is slightly tongue in cheek, but there is a huge dependency in many of us to have our smartphone with us no matter what. I'm no different, and thinking back, I've carried some form of smartphone or PDA with me over the last ten years. I kid myself that I've got perfectly good reasons to carry a computer with me at all times, and that I need to stay plugged into the internet cloud and have gigabytes of information at my finger-tips but mostly it's paranoia.
And two way paranoia at that, with the worry not that people will not be able to reach me with their incredibly vital news and thoughts that needs to be handled as soon as possible, but that I'll be unable to get in touch if I have a burning desire to talk about the weather. Half the time isn't the reason for going out somewhere precisely because you want to get away from people, especially in an office environment?
Nokia have always made a strong point that the mobile phone is something you always have with you – you grab your house keys, your wallet and your phone as you go out of the door. The phone is now something intrinsically associated with a single person, and the growth of the smartphone has meant that what was once science fiction – that everyone would carry a personal computer with them that could do everything – is now reality.
But what's important is remembering that these phones are nothing more than tools – yes they keep us connected, they mean we are never truly alone, but I wonder just how much we lose as humans when we have this addiction to mobility? In the last year or so, I've taken to writing more physical letters and small presents in the post – the reaction from those that receive them seems to be far stronger than it used to be. The physicality that real life offers (and is forgotten in our electronic world) seems to have been magnified as we immerse ourselves in the online culture.
(Lets ignore the fact that I use Amazon and Ebay to find the little cute gifts, okay?).
Harking back to those sci-fi plots where we all had computers, they were all connected and anyone could find and talk to anyone in the world, there was always something hidden and evil in the networks, be it a political human interference, or a malevolent computer program that connected the computers and took over the world. If we've achieved the first step of ubiquity, can the silicon overlords be close behind? As for the other side of the evil computers fictional coin, I'd point out the recent publicity around the Nokia Siemens networking equipment providing the Iranian government an avenue to conduct surveillance on their population.
With so many people waiting eagerly for the next phone, queuing up and doing their best to get the latest hardware from a manufacturer, update their firmware to ensure they have the highest version number possible, are we forgetting what a smartphone should be used for? It's a tool, no more, no less. It's not some deity that we have to offer up a sacrifice every 12 months and keep feeding all our personal information for the latest online service.
In the next few years, phones will be able to run our lives, with prediction, navigation, recommendations and communications. What will this do to our humanity? How can we ensure that we don't become a nation, or a world, fixated on the tiny screens we carry around that tell us what to do, when to do it, and who we'll be doing it with...
-- Ewan Spence, July 2009.
News Discussion
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Originally Posted by slitchfield
(Lets ignore the fact that I use Amazon and Ebay to find the little cute gifts, okay?).
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Great article Steve... And a big reality. I cant tell you the number of times I have received a cold stare from my wife when suddenly I just pick up my (smart)phone and start checking my email. Or my IM list.. :)
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Originally Posted by malerocks
LOL :)
Great article Steve... And a big reality. I cant tell you the number of times I have received a cold stare from my wife when suddenly I just pick up my (smart)phone and start checking my email. Or my IM list.. :) |
Very furious, so much so that he'd check this thread on his handphone and wonder how did you confuse Steve and him.
Yes, I take mine with me, but if a client asks me for my mobile number, I point out that the mobile is for my convenience, not theirs. They can ring my office number and leave a message; it means there's only one number for them to call, and if they press the menu option to say it's urgent, the voicemail system calls my mobile, and I'll decide if it really is worth interrupting a day off, or a holiday.
If I'm on the move for a while, I divert the mobile.
And for those who do get the mobile number (if I answer an unknown number, my response is "Who are you and what do you want?"), they're in caller groups; at certain times of the day, the phone only alerts for specific groups.
I'm in a minority, of course. All too often people do become enslaved to their phones. They gratefully accept the Blackberry or the E71 from the office, thinking it means they've arrived in their career, while management are chortling at the fact that now people even think they have to respond to corporate emails when they're on the beach, all in the name of productivity and shareholder value.
Mobiles are a great tool - but they should remain just that. Learn to manage you phone, rather than letting it manage you.
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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Spence will be furious.
Very furious, so much so that he'd check this thread on his handphone and wonder how did you confuse Steve and him. |
But I am curious, how did I get Steve's id when I used the quote option for the article to include that particular line in my post?
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Originally Posted by malerocks
My mistake Evan... Sorry...
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It's "Ewan"
Anyway, nice article Ewan, it does make me realize..not to spend too much time on mobile phones..but isn't that what humanity is all about? we create, we utilize it and we enjoy it =D
You wouldn't want to go back to a world where you'd have to find a public telephone just to tell Steve about your discovery would you? =)
I've been told that I'm a bastard for doing that :D
Nice post on the freedom these days but I really think you are overreacting. You still remember that there is a mute button on the phone right. People CAN get in touch with you only if you WANT them to get in touch with you. The freedom that the phone gives is exceptional, but we can still keep our privacy just by ignoring the boss that wants to give you an assigment on saturday or the girl from last night that you don't want to see again in a million years. I am 23 years old and practically almost can't remember the time people didn't had mobile connection and have to admit there is a certain level of addiction with these tiny boxes and all the stuff they can do, but remember there is always a power-off button :)
P.S. Please excuse me for my English, but the grammar is not my strong part :P
My personal method for coping has been to disable the 3G capabilities on my phone and to rely on WiFi alone. (Which, and here's my Nokia plug, is rather easy with my 5800 using the Destinations system: I simply deleted the packet data connections from all routes and now do not have to worry about charges, etc.) If I'm outside or away then I can't, and, after some mental training and practice, don't _want_ to be kept up to date. Otherwise, I've personally found it to be just a bit too much and too tempting, resulting in lost hours and slightly less appreciation of the physical world around me.. :P
I know I am hooked but don't know whether I can switch off.
Can i really afford to miss that call from an important customer on a sunday whom I have been chasing for months? Can I really miss my boss's call?
I rather feel, that they have given me much more freedom than ever before.
I have a Nokia N79, primarily a multimedia phone but used heavily as an enterprise phone by me (sorry :P)
Just because, I am connected, I am available, I can check and send mails real time, I can see office docs, edit them and send them back, I get "THAT" elusive leave that otherwise would had been impossible for me to take.
I can attend a wedding function, take 30 minutes out of that, work on my files, send them and then get back to the function.
I do not see where I am missing.
Perhaps, there are times, when you just want to be with yourself, but for me, that period is just half a day per week and I do try to minimise my use then.
If I ever get like that then I know it's time to quit. I have my own time and my leave when I want it and it hasn't held me back. I also instruct my team to switch off their business phones in their own time.
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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Sounds like Ashu is not a slave to his phone but IS a slave to his job.
If I ever get like that then I know it's time to quit. I have my own time and my leave when I want it and it hasn't held me back. I also instruct my team to switch off their business phones in their own time. |
The thing why these conceptions are blooming about technology overruling the world is the normal and natural trend mentality of human being where we seek supply in times of scarcity, but also seek curtail in times of abundance.
Let's just enjoy what technology is bringing to us.
Oh, if only!
The reason I continually download the latest updates is in the vain hope all those promised features finally work properly!
And no sooner does the next model appear on the market (with perhaps a higher resolution camera, which I could care less about), than the updates for the old model cease!
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