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Colton Ruggery
Professor Stephen Fonash
English 137H
November 20, 2015
The Smartphone Revolution
Sexting, distracted driving, poor posture, decreased vision, increased stress,
sleep loss, even cancer and infertility; these are just a few of the social impacts
attributed to smartphones. So much has been written about the negative impact
smartphones have had on society that we lose sight of the enormous, positive
impacts smartphones have had on our world. When Popular Mechanics put together
their list of 101 Gadgets That Changed the World, the smartphone was number
one on their list; ahead of the ballpoint pen, sewing machine, batteries, light bulb
and even ahead of fire (101 Gadgets, 2011). The smartphone has transformed the
way we communicate. It has changed the way we buy and sell goods. If we desire,
smartphones can help us stay fit, organize our schedules, share photos, pay bills - in
todays world there may be no truer statement than the words of a famous Apple
marketing campaign, Theres an app for that. The fact is, smartphones have
driven some of the most significant social and cultural changes in the history of
mankind, and most of those changes have happened in the span of less than ten
years.
Alexander Graham Bell was granted the first patent for a telephone in March,
1876. Over the next one hundred plus years, the telephone evolved but never
deviated far from its origin as a corded device which allowed two people to

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converse across relatively long distances. There was the candlestick design, the
rotary phone and even the pushbutton phone designs. None of these however really
changed the function of the telephone or how people thought about long distance
communication. The first major paradigm shift with regard to telephones came in
1983, when Motorola introduced the DynaTac 8000, the worlds first, commercially
available cellular phone. For the first time, people were able to communicate with
one another over long distances without the need for a corded telephone. It was
truly a breakthrough at the time, and the DynaTac launched our society into the age
of cellphones. While there was undoubtedly a cool factor in having one of these
early cellular phones, the social and cultural impacts were more significant. For
over one hundred years, people believed that wires were required for long-distance
communication. The ability to communicate without wires, while driving, walking,
sitting in the yard or anywhere one pleased, was finally a reality. The cell phone
opened up an entirely new way of thinking about communication.
Cell phones grew in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s. By the early
2000s, the internet was being commercialized and along with it, came
advancements in cellular technology which would once again change the way we
think about cellphones. Blackberry came out with PDAs Personal Digital
Assistants. These devices not only made phone calls and sent text messages, but
could access email a quickly expanding new way to send digital messages back
and forth. PDAs also had small computer processors with a calculator, calendar and
other functions built-in. They even featured internal memory, with the capability to
store information. And at the price of only a few hundred dollars, Blackberry was
selling many units of its new PDA. The drawback to these units was their size. The
added functionality required a full keyboard for easier use. When compared to

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other cellphones of the time, while the PDAs were much more useful, they were
much larger in size and weight. For business persons, the PDA was a critical
business tool, but for the average consumer, their size made PDAs inconvenient.
The significance of the PDA however, was not how many units they sold, but the
paradigm shift PDAs created. Suddenly, cellphones were not just for wireless
communication. Suddenly, cellphones were capable of additional functions and
replacing commonplace tools for doing work. This change in technology led to the
next, monumental shift in thinking about cellular phones.
It was in 2007 that the world of cellphones, and the world in general, changed
forever. That year Apple, led by Steve Jobs, introduced the first iPhone. Taking all
the great features from the cellphones and PDAs that preceded it, the iPhone was
and to some degree still is magical. The iPhone was the first, true smartphone.
The iPhone was able to make and receive phone calls, but it did so much more. The
iPhone had a full-color, LED screen that automatically rotated between portrait and
landscape orientation, depending on how you were holding it. Its full-sized,
QWERTY keyboard was digital built into the screen itself. The iPhone had a digital
camera that was capable of still photos and video as well. Built into the iPhone was
iTunes a technology borrowed from the Apple iPod, which allowed consumers to
buy, store and listen to all their music right from their phone. And another great
feature was the touchscreen controls. Everything, from the digital images, to the
keyboard were built into the touchscreen. Never had there been a more elegant
design, more intuitive controls or more functionality built into one unit. But the real
magic, turned out to be the apps. Short for applications, apps were represented
by colorful, square icons on the screen which, when you touched them, opened up
useful functions some of which were borrowed from all the cellphones and PDAs

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which were designed before the iPhone. There was a calculator, a clock with
stopwatch, alarm and timer functions, digital notepads for storing information,
email, news, an internet browser, weather, a calendar, 128 MB of RAM and up to
8GB of memory and much more (Zigterman, 2013). It was at this moment, in 2007,
when the paradigm of how we think about phones was changed forever.
Cellphones had now become smartphones and these smartphones would create
major shifts in the way we communicate, the way we live, and would actually take
the place of many commonplace tools.
Fast forward to today - the iPhone has gone through six generations of
upgrades and competitors have come out with their own smartphones, called
android smartphones. According to Statista, there are now 1.6 million apps
available for android smartphones and over 1.5 million available for the iPhone
(Number of apps). Each of these apps theoretically enables the smartphone to
perform some unique or different function. According to a February, 2015, article
titled Planet of the Phones, approximately half the worlds population now owns a
cellphone. By the year 2020, the author suggests that eighty percent of people on
our planet will own a smartphone (Planet of the Phones, 2015). The use and
acceptance rates are staggering. The number of negative articles and public outcry
over smartphone use is staggering as well. The Associate Press just today released
an article about high school students in Colorado sexting. The story told of students
using apps that looked like calculators, but were really apps for encoding naked
pictures, taken by and sent via smartphone app to other high school students
(Banda, 2015). A quick Google search of the terms smartphone problems (done
via your smartphone if you wish!), yields over fifty nine million results. Among the
results are articles on smartphone addiction, health problems, identity fraud,

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distracted driving, pornography and socially rude behavior. With so much emphasis
and reporting on all the negative impacts smartphones have had on our society, its
very easy to forget the real impact smartphones have had on society. The fact is,
smartphones have shifted social behaviors in many positive ways. There have been
so many, significant, positive impacts in our society as a result of the smartphone,
that they are too numerous to cover in one sitting. There are however a few
overarching changes worth deeper discussion.
Smartphones have become the swiss army knives of our society making
obsolete many of the commonplace tools developed since the turn of the century.
With literally millions of apps available for the smartphone, many tools we used to
depend on in our daily lives are no longer necessary. Among the daily objects
replaced by smartphone apps include: calculators, watches, GPS/navigation
systems, printed books, rolodex, calendars, notepads, radios, board games,
pedometers, tape recorders, newspapers, instrument tuning devices, stopwatches,
cameras, scanners, flashlights, levels, rulers, and the list goes on. Smartphones
and the endless development of apps, have changed how we live our daily lives and
in the process, made obsolete a great number of gadgets we have depended on in
the past. In a December, 2012, article on www.nextweb.com, the author claims to
have added up the cost to replace the single-use devices he no longer uses thanks
to his smartphone. The cost was over $1200, and that article was written three
years ago significantly outdated by todays, fast-paced world of app development
(Ong, 2012).
The significance of the replacement goes well beyond monetary cost
however. For starters, smartphones have reduced clutter and the amount of stuff
we have to store and organize. If you take just a moment to picture each of the

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items listed above all laying in a pile on the floor, you can envision a very large
mound of products that are no longer necessary. And the list above is not
exhaustive. The list of items that could potentially be tossed away and replaced
with our smartphones is actually much longer. Suddenly, through the utility of our
smartphones, our drawers, closets and desktops are much less cluttered. We dont
have to buy, own or store as much stuff. Along with the reduction in clutter also
comes a corresponding shift in convenience. Presumably, each of the items
replaced by smartphones has a storage spot in our lives. We probably keep a
calculator on our desks, a camera in a closet somewhere, a GPS in or built into our
vehicles, a flashlight in our garage, and so on. When we need each of those items,
we have to search them out. Sometimes they are within our grasp, but other times
they are not. Think of the many times you have needed a flashlight, only to realize
you left it at home or the batteries are dead in the one thats handy. How often do
we miss impromptu photo opportunities because we dont have a camera with us?
The smartphone changes all of that. In one, small, pocket-sized unit that most
people carry with them at all times, we can shine a light or take a picture or do one
of the many other functions available via smartphone apps. The cultural shift in
convenience and the reduction of clutter created by the smartphone has been
profound.
These examples above only cover simple, single-use tools. When we
examine the more complex applications for smartphones, the paradigm shift
becomes even more significant. For example, my family recently switched their
television cable provider to Dish Network. Dish provided four cable boxes, one of
which is called a slingbox. The slingbox connects to a wireless network and
provides access, via smartphone app of course, for watching any live television

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program or even programs my family has recorded via DVR. So, while taking my
six-year-old sister for a tennis lesson every Sunday used to mean my Dad had to
either miss the Steeler game or find someone to take my sister to her lesson, the
smartphone and DISH slingbox technology has changed it all around. My sister
practiced tennis last Sunday, and my Dad sat on the bleachers watching a live NFL
football game on his iPhone. Smartphones have made the television a tool that is
no longer needed for watching live or recorded programming.
Another more complex use of smartphone technology is language translation.
Not long ago, translating one language to another required the use of one or more
tools. Unless one had access to a bilingual, human translator, translating a foreign
language required the use of a translation dictionary. Use of the dictionary of
course takes time, so it was virtually impossible to get a real-time translation. The
best we could do is write down or record the phrase and invest painstaking effort to
look up each and every word. And even then, the result would often not be in the
correct syntax. Enter the smartphone translation app with the ability to instantly
convert spoken word to another language in real time. Google Translate is one
example of such an app. This free application allows a person to speak into their
phone in English and as you speak, the phone immediately translates the phrase
into a language of your choice. The app is also capable of doing the translation in
reverse, from any language to English, or the app can translate as the user types in
the phrases. Later on in this paper, we will discuss the implications apps like this
have on our communication as a society. The major shift to note here is that the
smartphone is capable of replacing tools that we have used for both simple and
very complex tasks. Where we used to purchase, store and put into use many,
individual tools each day, we now turn to our smartphones for those applications.

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When faced with a task that we arent able to do on our own, almost all of us now
instinctively search the app store for a solution. In most cases, we can probably find
an app that will do the job.
Smartphones have also changed the way we communicate with others. Way
back when telephones required a cord, we had one-on-one conversations with one
another. In the later stages of corded phone development, we could have multiple
people on the call via speakerphone and even conference calls connecting multiple
phone lines. Todays smartphones have those features built-in, but have taken
communication to an entirely new level. Theres Facetime, the app which allows us
to actually see the person we are speaking with real-time. Theres Facebook and
similar smartphone apps which allow us to share our thoughts, photos, videos,
favorite internet links and much more with our limited network of friends. As
mentioned earlier, there are apps which can instantly translate foreign languages
enabling communication between persons who dont speak the same language.
And then there are mass-communication apps like Twitter, Instagram and Vine
which instantly allow the communication of our thoughts, photos and videos to
thousands and potentially even millions of people instantly and directly from our
smartphones. Consider that shift in our communication paradigm from one-toone, verbal-only communication to one-to-millions, multimedia communication
instantly. The smartphone has changed tremendously the way we communicate.
For example, when my parents were in high school, they communicated by passing
handwritten notes during the school day to their friends. At night, theyd talk on
the phone with those same friends, but only for short periods of time because they
didnt want to tie up the only line of communication into and out of the house. And
the conversations were either very quiet or limited in content, because the phone

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was normally located in the kitchen or some other central part of the house with
limited privacy. Contrast those communications with the commonplaces of today.
Today we can text, tweet, email, Snapchat or Instragram our friends any time of the
day. We can choose to keep those messages private to just one other person, limit
them to a chosen group, or we can make those messages open for anyone with a
smartphone or internet connection to see. We can even choose to send the
messages in text or recorded voice or even choose to use emojis or pictures or
videos. The smartphone has opened the door to massive cultural change in the way
we communicate with one another.
Smartphones didnt just change the way we communicate with each other
either. Smartphones have changed the way we communicate with things. With
the evolution of the smartphone, connectivity to the internet and our ability to send
signals wirelessly, its now possible to control inanimate objects from nearby or
even long distances via our smartphones. There are apps to open garage doors,
turn on/off the lights in our home, control the thermostat and thus the temperature
of our homes, start our vehicles remotely, open and close the blinds on our
windows, summon a cab (or an Uber driver), and even control a drone.
Smartphones have changed our connectivity to the things around us sometimes
referred to as the internet of things. The internet is the infrastructure, but
smartphones are the interface devices. This connectivity to things has significantly
changed our culture and the way we think about things like safety, for example.
There are smartphone apps that connect to video surveillance cameras. So while
we are out of the house, we can quickly and easily log into an app and observe realtime video footage of our home. There are also apps that allow the turning on of
lights, enabling and disabling of home alarm systems and even unlock or lock our

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doors from anywhere we have a cellular or wireless network signal. In years past,
when we walked out the door, we had zero control over the safety or security of our
homes. We had to simply hope that things were secure when we returned.
Smartphones have changed that paradigm completely and given us a whole new
way to think about and control the security of our homes.
In yet another example of how profound the changes have been with regard
to smartphone communication with things, consider the drones that have drawn so
much attention recently. Drones are not much different in construction or
performance than radio-controlled helicopters, which have been around for many
years. What makes drones much different however is the ease of use and added
functionality that drones have built in, and its the smartphone that is mostly
responsible for those differences. A radio-controlled helicopter required the use of a
hand-held device for controlling the unit. These hand-held devices were relatively
large, single-use and very complex. It required a great deal of skill and practice to
effectively fly a radio-controlled helicopter, and the functionality of the unit was
limited to flying around within the operators line of sight. Drones however, are
controlled by what is essentially a video game control unit with a smartphone
plugged into it. The smartphone essentially operates as the brains of the drone.
Each drone has a video camera attached which streams live video to the
smartphone screen. The smartphone allows the user to fly the drone out of sight,
as the camera/smartphone connection serves as the eyes and ears for the operator.
And that video can of course be recorded on the smartphone, and still images can
be taken as well. If the operator wants the drone to return home, the smartphones
GPS functionality can be used to return the drone immediately back to its starting
point or any other programmed landing point, for that matter. The smartphone

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connectivity is a key component in making drones user-friendly and accessible to
everyone. It also is a key part of the functionality that makes drones so useful and
has companies such as Amazon considering whether drones could be used to
deliver packages. Its just another example of how smartphones have significantly
impacted the way we communicate with objects and changed the way we think
about our lives and the possibilities for technology to change our lives.
From telephone to cellphone to smartphone the evolution of the phone and
the paradigm shifts that have accompanied it, have had perhaps the most
significant impact on our society ever. To illustrate just how quickly the smartphone
continues to change our world we can look again at the 2012 article from
nextweb.com. The author concluded his article with projections of what might be
next in smartphone development. His supposition included what he called
wearable computing. Quoting Forrester senior analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, the
article went on to predict, For the most part wearables will be complementary to
smartphones, but theyll also be standalone devices. Phones will take different
shapes and still be essential to our lives but they wont look the way they do now.
(Ong, 2012) Today we have the Apple Watch a device worn on the wrist that is
both complementary to the iPhone, but can also perform some functions as a
standalone device. Its just another example of how smartphones continue to
develop and flip orthodoxies about communication and the tools we use in our daily
lives. Suddenly the watch has a whole new meaning and functionality.
From wired to wireless, immobile to mobile, one-to-one communication to
one-to-millions; the smartphone has directly or indirectly touched every part of our
lives. It is now our single most important source of communication with other
people and with inanimate objects. Its our key source of information, whether for

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research, health tips, nutrition or the weather. Its our camera. Its our video
recorder. Its our calculator and, if you have the right app, it can serve as your
television and DVR too. I wonder where the smartphone will lead us next? I think
Ill google that on my iPhone right now.

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Works Cited
Banda, Solomon, and Colleen Slevin. "News from The Associated Press."
Hosted.ap.org. Associated Press, 13 Nov. 2015. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
"Number of Apps Available in Leading App Stores 2015." www.statista.com. Statista,
n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.
Ong, Josh. "How Smartphones Have Made Countless Tools Obsolete." TNW Network
All Stories RSS. www.nextweb.com, 22 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
"Planet of the Phones." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 28 Feb. 2015.
Web. 14 Nov. 2015.
Zigterman, Ben. "How We Stopped Communicating like Animals: 15 Ways Phones
Have Evolved." www.bgr.com. BGR Media, 13 Dec. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.
"101 Gadgets That Changed the World." Popular Mechanics. Popular Mechanics
Magazine, 15 June 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.