1. Will books aided and enhanced by interactive technology replace books as we know them today in the traditional ink-on-paper format?
2. Is it possible that enhancements added to books, such as the audio component to Mozafari’s “Kubla Khan,” will distract from the core feeling and meaning of the text? Is it crucial to have an initial feeling to a text by itself before diving into its context, or is it more important to understand where a text comes from before reading it?
3. We see a classic piece of literature molded into a microblog in Hancock and Skutlin’s The House of Her. Is there a future where original microblogs could be considered literature? Where Tweets are turned into novels, or held to the same level of literary importance?
On page 82, Holl-Jensen explains the idea of an open book that doesn’t allow access to all of the pages. If the reader decides not to cut into the book, they are getting a very different story than if they had decided to. How does this relate to technology and how we view eBooks, online articles, etc.? Should authors think about this while writing?
On page 84 Holl-Jensen claims some books are looked at as artifacts while other books with the same content are looked at as mere objects that contain text? How does form contribute to the way a book is viewed?
On page 90, Alyson Fielding states that “a digital book shouldn’t mean we need to let go of the emotional connection to a physical object, and combining books with technology doesn’t have to mean a device with a screen”.Why does the form of a book relate to how we feel about the book? If a paper book and a digital book share the same content, why do they affect us in different ways?
Together we have explored future dystopias through the imaginations of EM Forster, Ray Bradbury, and Margaret Atwood. Each of these writers invent new technologies in their works in order to address current political and cultural issues they wish to address – for example, genetically modified food, over-exposure to screens (and celebrity), violence in video games, etc. These devices often utilize “remediation” drawing from new media concepts we are familiar with, and enhance them to fit in the alternate reality the author has created. For this assignment you will engage in “reflective design,” defined by Hancock et al as “promot[ing] critical inquiry over usability and exploratory prototyping over fully realized productions.” You can do this by beginning with the current state of new media and then projecting potential solutions – or perhaps evolutions – of these tools to enhance the reading and/or writing process in the future. We are specifically concentrating on the tools of composition for this project, since this course has focused on literacy skills the tools we use to communicate. However, these are meant to be visions of the future – featuring a balance of imagination and practicality.
This project will be broken into 4 parts:
Stage 1: The Pitch
Due Date – 11/14
Create a proposal for your “design fiction” project (3-5 pages, 3min presentation)
Introduce the product and explain its purpose – this is the time to dream big!
Explain what need this product will fill that isn’t met by currently available technology and how it builds on current technology(ies)
Prove this item has a customer base, and be specific about your target audience
Imagine the process and materials it would take to manufacture and distribute this product – even if these do not exist yet
Come up with marketing materials, such as a catch phrase/motto/logo to use in your pitch
Stage 2: Group Proposal
Due Date – 11/21
As a class you will vote on the top 3 products to develop into your collaborative final projects. (5-7 pages)
As a group you will create a contract defining the roles each of you will fill for your group, then you must divide the tasks you need to complete, and provide clear due dates for each task
This proposal will also revise the original pitch to incorporate everyone’s ideas and create a robust description of your new tool and its purpose
Together you should re-think how to prototype and market this product – consider your audience, and how this idea improves on already existing products
Create sample marketing materials
Stage 3: Annotated Bibliographies
Rolling due dates, post as you go (2 must be added before Thanksgiving)
Using Zotero, you will build a research base for this project
Each person must contribute at least 3 resources to our group library
Each source must include a correctly formatted MLA citation
Each source must be summarized and evaluated in the “notes” section (see presentation slides uploaded to our site for more information)
Stage 4: Final Project
Presentations on 12/8 and 12/10
Create a website for your product
This site should serve as the complete representation of your product
Include a description that features your research (properly cited) and connections to what you have learned in this course
Include some kind of prototype or mock-up of your tool
Design marketing materials, and work these into the overall design of the site
Use mutlimedia to your advantage!
Include a full works-cited page for all materials used (including media)
Additional Notes:
Each group must meet with me in pre-scheduled conferences as listed in the syllabus. I am also available to consult with you on your individual product pitches during office hours.
This description is subject to change after we discuss your ideas. Suggestions welcome!
A final reflection paper telling me what you learned through this process will be due on the date of your final exam.
1. Technological fluency is “the capability to understand, use, and assess technology beyond its rote application” (76). If technology is really meant to be built upon and altered, who is to say what the “rote application” of an object really is?
2. One page 83, Kraus discusses the meanings of books and their inaccessibility. While it is true that in order for a book to be successful it needs to be accessible to readers, interpretations can still vary wildly. Even if the book is widely read, does the implied message ever indefinitely make it across to all readers? In this case, should authors ever strive for their works to be more selective towards those who will get the meaning right away?
3. I agree with sentiments expressed on page 87. The effect some text has is lost between the various mediums in which to read them. Kraus mentions how the Kindle only can view one page at a time. Although this can hurt an author (if the author wanted to present both pages at the same time like in a normal book in order to get the reader to see broader) can it not also help? What if the author wanted to create dramatic effect and leave a cliffhanger on one page that gets resolved on the next? How much does the physical manifestations of text affect the way we read?
Participate in a conversation with Senior Vice President of Social Impact at The Huffington Post Media Group/AOL Brian Sirgutz (BA ’01) around the idea of “doing well while doing good” and the impact of digital content as a means for social change. Learn how Sirgutz developed a critical component of The Huffington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning program “Beyond the Battlefield,” and how he came to lead all development of social impact-related business and product development innovations on The Huffington Post’s platform.
Brian leads all aspects of the company’s impact editorial content and engagement strategy. Brian founded the Impact, Education, Good News verticals which reach over 20 million people on a monthly basis.
The way students engage in studying, I would venture to say, is less reliant upon reading actual books since much of the relevant information can be found online. As you have detailed that “the quest for book knowledge enlists all our sense”, does the quest for electronic knowledge lessen the experience of reading and retaining information, does the transformation of “programmable media” affect this in any way?
From looking at the different paradigms of design, reflective, visceral, and behavioral, can technology still be regarded as beautiful if it cannot be used? For example, “Norman’s so called ‘masochistic’ teapot” (76)
Do you think the relationship between form and content is one that should be explored further, as it was with Carlea Holl-Jensen’s book, or should technologies that work today be left unaltered? Why?
Founded in 2005 by Robert Kaplin, Etsy has become the go-to online marketplace for all things handmade and vintage. Through Etsy, individual sellers can use the e-commerce site to sell anything and everything handmade or second hand. From art and quilts to furniture and second hand toys, if it’s cute, knitted or has a bow on it, you can find it on Etsy. However beneath the ruffled curtains and Oreo cookie shaped necklaces, Etsy has come to represent something much larger. It is a key technological tool in the new wave feminism movement, encouraging a new generation of women to start their own businesses and make their own money. In this essay I will examine the new media methods that Etsy utilises to make selling online so accessible as well as the modern resurgence of popularity in handmade goods and old media crafts. And how together these two movements have created a space online where women who many traditionally not have been able to work or earn an income have been able to empower themselves and become successful business owners from their homes.
In November 2013 (the last time Etsy posted their monthly statistics online), $147.5 million of goods were sold via the online marketplace. In that same month 1,318,666 new members joined the Etsy community and 2.15 billion page views were recorded on the site (Traub). What makes Etsy stand out from other competitive online marketplaces is, of course, it’s focus on the homemade, however upon examining the interface of the website there are a number of features that show why Etsy is so appealing as a platform for business owners and why it has made the process of selling online so easy.
As soon as you go the Etsy homepage, users are encouraged to sign up to in order to start browsing and buying goods. The sign up process is easy and requires no financial transactions upfront. Once users are signed in, the Etsy homepage displays galleries of items that are ‘trending’ or centre around a certain theme such as ‘halloween’, ‘weddings’ or ‘gift ideas’.
Image a – The Etsy homepage interface
The interface (see image a) is clean and minimalist but with a feminine edge. The handpicked items from different stores displayed in these galleries all feature beautifully handmade goods and well photographed products. Users then have the option of searching for an item or a shop or browsing items by category. The category options give you an idea of the types of goods popular on Etsy; ‘art’, ‘home and living’, ‘craft supplies’ all focused around aesthetic pleasures and homespun delights.
One thing that makes Etsy so attractive to sellers is the store front interface (see picture b). Once you have clicked on aparticular user or seller the site directs you to their personal Etsy page. The layout of the pages is beautiful, users are given the chance to upload their own header image, create categories displayed in the side bar detailing the types of items they are selling and each user has a box in the sidebar with information about the shop owner. What strikes you most is how professional Etsy makes everything look. Many of the people selling are extremely amateur however due to the layout, each individual sellers page could be it’s own professional e-commerce site. The layout and the design immediately provoke trust in the buyer. You do not feel as if you are buying from an amateur but from a proper online shop with beautiful handmade items.
Image b – Etsy individual seller store front
Etsy operates all their transactions through Paypal. Upon buying an item the user is redirected to Paypal where they can check out in a number of seconds with nothing but their Paypal login details. The seller never has to worry about handling the money, Etsy takes care of it all. The money is simply transferred from the buyer’s Paypal into the sellers Paypal and then the seller is sent the details of the order and the delivery address. This quick pay element of Etsy is a huge attraction for sellers. What discourages a lot of people from starting their own business is worry about how they will operate it financially; processing payments and figuring out how to handle the money once it’s been received.
Another element of new media that makes Etsy so attractive to small business owners is photography. Jewellery designer Emma Mitchell owns an Etsy shop called Silver Pebble where she sells her handmade silver jewellery.A necklace by Emma will cost on average $180 and to make each one costs Emma herself 50% of the selling price. (Mitchell) Before Etsy, were Emma to have tried to sell her products she would have needed to sell them through a shop or a craft fair. This would mean making dozens of each product in the hope that they would sell. (Mitchell) For a lot of people setting up their own business it is financially impossible to make a large supply of their items before having sold them and there is also always the risk that the items won’t sell and you will make a loss. The development of photographic technology has meant most people have access to high definition photography and a way of putting it online. This means Emma has to only make one of her necklaces and can then go on to make each one individually as each new order comes in. Etsy offers customisable delivery times meaning the seller can let the user know that they will be making the product upon receiving the order. For small business owners who do not have a lot of seed money, this aspect of the online marketplace is extremely important and almost completely removes all the start up risks involved with creating a business. The user friendly interface of Etsy has opened a whole new windows of possibility for crafters around the world. A talented knitter wishing to make some money suddenly has a multitude of options right at their fingertips that just wouldn’t have been possible for previous generations.
The transformation in potential business opportunities for crafters has also had a huge impact in modern feminism.For a long time feminism and crafts such as cooking, knitting and any other act seen as ‘women’s work’ were considered two opposing forces. During the second wave of feminism in conjunction with the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, feminists rejected so called ‘women’s work’ in order to try and claim equality and to balance women’s lives with their male counterparts. Women all over the world put down their needlework, put on their trouser suits and crafts became associated with stay at home mum’s and an old way of viewing women. (Offensend) However this very rejection of all things ‘girly’ goes against the idea that a central element to the feminist movement is choice. Feminism is about women having the freedom and equality to live the lives they choose without feeling dominated by men and the rejection of homely activities by second wave feminists exorcises this choice. (Offensend). The 1990’s saw an explosive resurgence of knitting among young women, often stated to be centred around feminist and Bust magazine editor Debbie Stoller’s book Stitch ’N Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook. In this, Stoller argues that it is time to rethink the position that girls doing traditionally male activities is feminist but girls doing traditionally female activities is not. There were also similar movements dismissing cooking and baking as non liberated, oppressive activities. While the 90’s resurgence of all things girly was extremely popular it was also very criticized. It centred around the idea that women who were already working or had some sort of financial stability should take up knitting or cooking as a hobby and many commented that only women in some sort of privileged position have the option not to do activities like these as a necessity but for pleasure. (Gilley)
This is where Etsy becomes relevant, new media has created a place where this reclamation of the handmade among feminists has stopped being simply a way to make a statement but an actual way for women to create businesses and empower themselves with their own income. In 2001 the media began to pick up on a growing trend regarding young women’s interests in knitting and crafting. The New York Times and other newspapers published profiles on young women, typically in their 20s of 30s, who support themselves by making and selling handcrafted items. A newspaper in Portland described it as a ‘craft phenomenon’, profiling 33 year old Susan Beal who supports herself by sewing, quilting and embroidering. When this movement first began most women were using craft fairs and independent boutiques to sell their goods, but with the development of Etsy most of them have relocated online. “In another era, I would have done this as a hobby, but the fact that I can earn my living with my creativity feels very feminist to me,” Beal says. “I don’t know if I would say it’s the new bra-burning, but I definitely think it’s a radical act…” (Stryker).
What the fight for equality for women has been known to dismiss is the real life complications of working for a lot of women. Many women have children and don’t want to go back to work in an office, or have children that are sick or disabled meaning they have to be home 24 hours a day. In 1998, feminist writers Judy Smith and Ellen Balka proposed the development of a Sex Role Impact statement that would be used just like the Environmental Impact Statement and would attempt to assess new technology on what the effect of it’s development would have on sex roles. The study involved seven questions that would need to be asked of every new technology by many public agencies before development decisions were made. The questions included statements such as ‘Would it broaden or restrict women’s traditional options?’ and ‘Would increase or limit women’s chances for economic self sufficiency?’. (Smith and Balka) Examining Etsy in terms of this study yields overwhelmingly positive results. Historically, a site like Etsy might be viewed as an example of technologythat women would be expected to shy away from. Women are often seen as not being a part of the traditionally male dominated worlds of business and technology and Etsy embodies the two. However it is estimated that over 90% of Etsy users are women (Luckman). Etsy has become a symbol of third wave feminism. A place where women can choose to embrace ‘women’s work’ but transform it into ‘men’s work’. Women who would have traditionally had to stay at home looking after their children or are unable to work can now be seen all over the world, creating their own businesses, obtaining their own incomes and creating supportive global networks and communities. In conclusion, if you thought it wasn’t possible to do needlework and be a feminist, you were most definitely wrong (see image c).
Offensend, Elizabeth Gillette, “Crafting a Space: A Feminist Analysis of the Relationship Between Women, Craft, Business and Technology on Etsy.com” (2012). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 892.
Gilley, Jennifer, “Writings of the third wave: young feminists in conversation” (2005). The Alert Collector.
Have you ever heard of Scott Aukerman? What about Marc Maron? Perhaps you have. Perhaps you’re not hip and you haven’t. But one thing is certain: you probably wouldn’t even know those names could be combined in those ways if it weren’t for podcasting. This innovative digital audio platform burst onto the scene in 2005. Well, “burst” may be a strong word. Not gaining much traction until The Ricky Gervais Show brought it into the mainstream, podcasts went from boring to exciting to so-last-year to what it is now. So how are podcasts doing now? Well they’ve definitely gained popularity, and for good reason. Podcasts have made careers for many successful individuals, make good business sense, and provide a respite from the your run-of-the-mill radio content.
Remember that Scott Aukerman fellow I mentioned before? You may know his work as a writer on the Emmy nominated Mr. Show with Bob and David, or as the creator and director of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. On May 1, 2009, he began doing a radio show based on a live stand-up show he hosted at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles called Comedy Death-Ray Radio. He decided to start podcasting the show one Episode 2, and it grew into a podcast network and production company called Earwolf. This little radio show gave Aukerman great opportunities. Due to the podcasts success and the popularity of the live show in LA, Aukerman began producing short interview segments for the Independent Film Channel to air between their regular programming, with guests like Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, and Paul Feig. This lead to Aukerman getting his own sketch show on IFC, changing the name of the podcast and live show to Comedy Bang! Bang! to accommodate it. The show is currently in the middle of its third season, and has a forty episode pick-up for season four.
This is a bit from Comedy Bang! Bang! the television show.
Marc Maron has a similar story. Widely regarded as the premier comedy podcast, WTF with Marc Maron skyrocketed Maron from little-known, resentful, bitter stand-up comedian to one of the most well known and respected comics in the business. He since has had a stand-up special on Netflix called Thinky Pain and his IFC sitcom Maron is currently in its second season. Podcasts are an incredible way for talented people to display their artistic vision the way they want to, and can lead to more mainstream success. The ability of podcasts to have a both wide and very specific appeal is what makes the medium so diverse and important to today’s culture.
So hosting a podcast can get you a television show. Great. But can podcasts sustain themselves? Something like podcasting can’t possibly be profitable, right? Wrong. While podcasts seemed to hold little appeal in the beginning, much like anything, an audience has grown over the years. Tom Webster, vice president at Edison Research, told the Washington Post “Five years ago, podcasting was very much a hobbyist’s activity and many people weren’t making them to make money. But audience sizes have grown consistently, and each listener is listening to more shows as part of their weekly habit. That’s brought major producers to embrace podcasting.” I highly doubt that the embrace is due to artistic expression. The reason podcasts can be profitable is an intimacy. Podcast fans feel a connection to shows they are fans of in a way that is distinct from television or films, or even radio shows. Because of the vast podcast marketplace, one feels like they’ve discovered a gem when finding a good podcast. Unfortunately, this sort of attitude toward podcasting may be the reason why the industry may never become a giant business. According to Christopher Matthews of Time magazine, “The average Hardcore History listener… is protective of the show not only because it offers a unique product that can’t be found anywhere else. They’re also protective of the show, and even willing to back it voluntarily, because they know it might otherwise go away… For this reason, podcasting may never become big business in the classic sense of the term.” However, this is better for podcasting as a whole. Maintaining this smaller business model leaves far less risk of compromising the integrity of the show, which is part of the draw of podcasts, getting a product you wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere.
Because of the smaller market nature of podcasts, the majority of them have little to no overhead in terms of what they can and cannot release to the public. According to Scott Cornell of the Houston Chronicle, “Podcasting allows the creator greater freedom in terms of presentation.” This gives podcasters a big leg up against traditional radio. From a journalistic standpoint, it allows reporters to be completely biased free. Many news outlets are owned by large corporations, which can lead to dishonest reporting and, in turn, the betrayal of the purpose of new media: to inform citizens of the goings-on in government policy and behavior. From artistic point-of-view, content providers are simply more free to try out different styles and produce a more raw and pure piece of entertainment.
No one can explain the difference between podcasts and radio quite like the afformentioned Marc Maron. WARNING: Mild language.
While podcasts are seen as widely positive, some see it as just another fad. Critics compare it to blogging, saying that anyone can create a podcast, so there is no quality control. There is no way to determine whether or not a source is credible. But these are the exact same arguments that have sprung up when anything new on the internet happens. These issues have been disproven time and time again.
It seems that the rise of the podcast is not going to be leaving anytime soon, and I’m happy for it. Podcasts provide an exciting new entertainment and informational medium, that can give truly talented people a way to express themselves and put out content they truly believe in. They remain profitable in a small business venture, while maintaining integrity in their product. The great DVR for radio is going to stay relevant for a long time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch up on mine.
Works Cited
“Paul Rust — New No No’s | Comedy Bang Bang | Video Podcast Network.” YouTube. Ed. Earwolf. YouTube, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
“Comedy Bang! Bang! – Anna Kendrick Time Travel.” YouTube. YouTube, 22 July 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
“Maron – Podcast vs. Radio.” YouTube. YouTube, 9 July 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
Matthews, Christopher. “Despite Being Oh-So 2005, Podcasting Is Drawing Listeners and Advertisers Alike | TIME.com.” Business Money Despite Being OhSo 2005 Podcasting Is Drawing Listeners and Advertisers Alike Comments. TIME, 29 Aug. 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
Kang, Cecilia. “Podcasts Are Back – and Making Money.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 25 Sept. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
Cornell, Scott. “Pros & Cons of Podcasting.” Small Business. Houston Chronicle, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
I love looking at duty free magazines in cross-continental flights. They are always filled with gadgets I can only dream about. Glasses that play movies only you can see, auto-balancing electric skateboards that transport you without any effort on your part, functional keyboards that are nothing more than projected images of keys. Science fiction meets reality on these shiny pages. Being subjected to many an international flight since my first trip at the age of 4 months has made me accept a strange fact of reality- most of the cool stuff that exists in this world is entirely out of my reach. People keep wondering why our world does not look like “back to the future 2” but fail to acknowledge it is not the lack of this technology that makes it so, but the lack of mainstream possession of it. Basically, There has always existed technology far more advanced and far more than what we use in our daily lives- but for some reason or another we don’t deem these items as “worth their price”. They are usually referred to as luxury items. Items like the blackberry fall into a similar category- If I could assign these things a word, it would be “premium”.
The cover that started it all
The iphone is premium. It came out in 2007, when I was in the 6th grade. I saw its likeness for the first time on the cover of time magazine, and I thought it was a piece of “too cool to be mainstream” tech that would never end up in my hands. That isn’t to say that I did not want one. But to voice this wanting would have been absurd, this was a piece of premium technology- normal people and especially children like me would never be able to even hold one. So when, a few years later, one of my uncles finally got his hands on the new iphone, I had the mindset that he was part of an exclusive club- the group privileged enough to have such luxury technology. But soon more signs that this was different appeared- literally, more signs. They said “Get you iphone 3GS here” (though probably in more flowery language) and strangely enough, they were in malls where I shopped every day. The slogan was “More to love, less to pay”
This advertisement possibly changed the world.
– words whose purpose was to remove the “premium” stamp from people’s minds. And then it started. My friends started getting them. I did not realize it at first, it was disguised as the “Ipod Touch”, which to me was just an ipod- a simple mp3 player with a fancy touch screen. Eventually, even I got this iTouch- the first gadget I had ever owned- and sometime in the 3 years that I slept with it under my pillow I must have realized that I actually owned the iphone I had so coveted.
So the question is- when did it stop being premium? It’s now weird to see people that don’t have smartphones. People throw them around- cracked screens are a kind of cultural symbol (wax). People have so many devices laying around their homes- I myself now realize that there are 8 of such devices (smartphones, tablets, and my itouch) laying around my very average, not wealthy in the slightest 3 person home.
everyone has an iphone
In pondering this question, I realized it was not the right question at all. My family pays in cell phone bills what a young family would pay for mortgage each month. Smartphones retail at $600-$1000 when bought without a plan- and when bought with plan usually end up being more expensive. The iphone is without a doubt still premium- or at least still has the characteristics of “premium” devices- very advanced and very expensive. And yet, it seems people of all different income brackets have smartphones and pay the undeniably hefty monthly charges (Smith). The smartphone revolution is, in fact, a monumental change in the flow of technology, it is the integration of “premium” technology into the mainstream population (Jung).
Income diversity in smartphone owners
What is it about smartphones that broke the cycle of elitism? What is the trait that makes them necessary in the lives of such a diverse group of people- possibly even all people? There are many possible reasons for this. The first, is of course, the multitude of uses that a smartphone can have depending on the user (Jung). A key reason for this is the variety of apps that users can download (Jung). This is undeniably the most customizable element of smartphones, and it allows users to “decide what a smartphone is for themselves, rather than just adopting a given product”(Jung). But perhaps it is not the apps that make smartphones so versatile, but their highly advanced mobile mobile browsers that allow people to connect to the internet outside the comfort of their homes- or even at all, as it is predicted that by 2015 more Americans will access the internet through smartphones than through desktop computers (Jung). In a study that surveyed the various reasons young Korean people use their smartphones, Communication came first, closely followed by entertainment. According to the study, “[Improved] communication leads to sense of comfort mediated by socialization. Sense of comfort can be defined as ‘the state of ease and peaceful contentment’ (Kolcaba & Kolcaba,1991, p. 1302), and individuals can reach this psychological state by having positive social relations (Kolcaba & DiMarco, 2005). For instance, mobile applications for social network sites can make smartphone users feel a constant connection to their peers, and this sense of social connection can help them to reach a state of comfort” (Jung). I have found this to be true in myself- even though I do not actively check Facebook or communicate with a large array of people as many others do, I find particular comfort in texting my close friends, especially given the ability to add multimedia into our communication. This really allows for a sense of connection, as humor and culture permeate the medium of texting on a smartphone.
My desire for an iphone initially was based in entertainment. I wanted to watch movies in a little thing I held in my hand. At the time, the concept of not being in front of the computer late at night (my only free time) and being able to read my beloved books and comics or watch movies in bed was an experience I would have never had before then. Before my iTouch, I listened to music only by sitting at my computer playing songs on Youtube or Napster. The ability to do these things anywhere was radical to me, and it was what fed my desire for an iphone in the early stages, and is still what I consider the primary function of my phone. I imagine that the others in this study who cite entertainment as their primary use feel similarly- they are in awe of the many different types of media they can access at all times, wherever they go. It was for this reason that, when presented the opportunity to get a new smartphone, I chose the mammoth Samsung Galaxy Note 3- at almost 6 inches, it is enormous. And I am not the only one.
The Big vs. Small debate might seem like a strange tangent in this narrative, but I think that within this issue lies the underlying cause for the entire smartphone revolution. Big screened smartphones were an unexpected success (Manjoo), as people thought that devices would continue to get smaller and smaller. The need for bigger phones reflects our primary usage of these devices- “We don’t talk on them any longer. We use these devices for maps, restaurant reviews, and for texting our friends and listening to music. So the screen becomes very important, and small screens are miserable to use” (Stone). Small phones are certainly miserable when we spend every waking hour on them.
Our smartphones, in the end, are extensions of ourselves. They hold our thoughts, our interests, our friends, and our information. They are both a portal to the outside world and into our own lives. All of these aspects- Communication, media access, comfort, customizability, mobility, and the vast web of information that now connects us all have made this technology an unbelievable enhancer of human life- well worth their “premium” price tag. Iphones are far beyond a luxury item, they are a necessity- for all members of our species, whither they are used by high school girls who plan their study time and watch TV shows or by people in third world countries who would not otherwise have internet access. My smartphone is my sidekick, and I would not have it any other way.
Jung, Yoonhyuk. “What a Smartphone Is to Me: Understanding User Values in Using Smartphones.” Information Systems Journal 24.4 (2014): 299–321. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.
Manjoo, Farhad. “Samsung’s Superior Note 4 Smartphone Gives Glimpse of Computing’s Future.” The New York Times 15 Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
“Smartphone Addiction Reaching New Heights.” n. pag. Print.
Smith, Aaron. “Nearly Half of American Adults Are Smartphone Owners.”Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Stone, Brad. “Zoolander Was Wrong: Why Phones Are Getting Bigger, Not Smaller.” BusinessWeek: technology 5 Sept. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
“TIME Magazine Cover: Best Inventions of 2007 – Nov. 12, 2007.”TIME.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Wax, Emily. “Beat-up Cellphones with Cracked Screens Are Point of Pride for Some Young People.” The Washington Post 17 May 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
End note: If anyone has any posting problems in the future, it might be because you have chrome updates turned off, this fixed my issues.
