Sure, smart phones place the digital world in the palm of your hand, but are they worth it? As with all technology, it comes down to how you choose to use it. The same device that can mobilize a political movement also allows you to check your e-mail during a family dinner.
"From a societal impact standpoint, I think it’s sad to watch people capturing experiences rather than having experiences," says digital strategist Renny Gleeson. "It's certainly not all bad, but these devices enable both enhanced focus and diverted attention in equal measures. The question is what do we do with that?"
A frequent commentator on new media, Gleeson presented a TED Talk in 2009 on the many ways smart phone users shun the people around them -- a talk he says originated in his own home.
"I was lying in bed one morning, and my wife was woken by the flash of the welcome screen on my mobile device," Gleeson says, "and she said, 'Hey, you haven’t even said good morning to me yet, and you’re turning that thing on?'"
There's more to smart phones than inopportune Foursquare check-ins, and Gleeson's role at ad agency Wieden+Kennedy puts him in regular contact with the latest informational technology.
"We're constantly looking at the positive impact -- all the connections you can make and the opportunities you can unlock," Gleeson says, "so I’m consistently both terrified and amazed at the power of these things and what the implications are."
Smart Phones and the Developing World
To really examine the benefits of smart phone technology, it helps to look at its impact on in low-income portions of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In countries such as Nigeria, smart phones continue to enable positive social, political and economic change.
"I was in Nigeria last month, and I met with a number of young entrepreneurs," says Dr. Michael L. Best. "They weren’t the rich and famous of Nigeria; they were just young folks with college degrees, and they were all on Facebook on their phones. They were, sort of, the Facebook generation of Nigeria, and it was all via smart phones."
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Best heads the Technologies and International Development lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The program studies the use of communication technologies in low-income and conflict-affected countries.
In these nations, he points out, smart phones often serve as an individual's sole piece of informational technology, taking on roles that Western users might limit to an accompanying PC. As smart phone technology spreads, so do the benefits.
"We know that Internet penetration and economic development go hand in hand," Best says. "We don’t always know where the links move from correlation to cause, but we do know Internet penetration opens up opportunities for agricultural efficiencies, better supply chain management, market price information, health improvements, education and information about medication for TB or HIV/AIDS."
Political Change
Some users in India rely on their smart phones to learn English as a second language, giving them an advantage in the outsourcing industry. In Nigeria, however, the biggest smart phone advantage comes in the form of political organization.
"The Nigerian Facebook generation is mostly focused on the 2011 Nigerian election and how they’re sick and tired of politics as usual in Nigeria," Best says. "They’re doing a lot of political organization, planning activist meetings and flash mobs leading up to the April elections."
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Best points out that 2.5 or 3G cellular networks already span the African continent and more than half of all Africans have used a mobile phone. As prices dip below the $100 level, more of that usage will come from smart phones.
"People already had mobile phones in most of these settings," Best says, "so as they transition from dumb phones to smart phones I think we’ll see much more impact and that transition will really be fueled by low prices."
Smart phone technology is making a difference in Nigerian daily life, but Best thinks there's even more at work in the psyche of the Nigerian Facebook generation.
"It also has inspired them, I think, philosophically or intellectually," Best says. "They get the democratization of provision, the Jeffersonian ideal of these social networking systems."
So are smart phones worth it?
"Absolutely yes,'" says Renny Gleeson, "'good' or 'bad' is irrelevant. We’re going to be wrestling with these things as cultural devices for a long time. We're not going to put the genie back in the bottle."
Photo: Getty Images/Jupiterimages
Tags: Cell Phones, Communication, Smart Phones
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