A Plugged in Society Can’t Disconnect

By Staff Writer Jared Trice

­A capitalistic society is nothing without its consumers. American consumerism fuels the fire of domestic and international economies by constantly demanding newer, thinner, faster, sleeker, smaller products.

With this demand, it comes as no surprise that technological advances are never far behind. It is clear the mobile phone industry sets the standard for rapid supply-and-demand response.

It is almost a conservative assumption that this generation of college students either received, or know someone who received, a mobile phone before they could technically be labeled a teenager.

Sure, these would have been the long, brightly-colored, antenna-sporting phones that had a screen only large enough to see that your mother was calling, but still, you were the envy of your peers, and, although you may not have realized it, you alerted Nokia of the enormous, untapped potential in this developing market.

In 2008, there were an estimated 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide. CTIA The Wireless Association estimates that the U.S. alone holds 271,641,421 mobile phone subscriptions.

The number is impressive considering the estimated population of the U.S. is approximately 305,000,000, allocating 89 mobile phones per 100 people. More impressive still is that the U.S. is dwarfed by 28 other countries boasting a higher ratio of mobile phones. Topping the list is Taiwan with 106 phones per 100 Taiwanese.

Since the late ‘90s, mobile phones have undergone rapid evolution. The first “brick” phones were thinned down, and as technology advanced, those thin phones became tiny.

At some point in the early millennium, the color screen was introduced and a wave of new potential broke out. The color screen allowed phone makers to conjure endless possibilities for their products, and for the first time in a long time, technology had to catch up.

According to their website, Research In Motion released the Blackberry in 1999. The Blackberry, and other smartphones, introduced consumers to this waiting technological potential: Smartphone users could now check and send emails, make calls, send texts, browse the web and manage a schedule all on one handheld device.

The introduction of such a capable device instantly transformed the world in which we live. With this smartphone, as we now refer to these devices, the tradition of the nine-to-five job became antiquated.

Employers wanted an ambitious and driven staff, a staff that would not balk at the idea of answering emails on the morning commute and would never be too out of touch on their lunch break.

A vacation destination seemed to be redefined as a relaxing work environment for these ambitious employees. Slowly, inevitably and in the name of productivity, the florescent lights of the office were encroaching on our personal lives.

A new philosophy had been imbedded into the minds of Americans. The smartphone is now the must-have device.

Nightfall over North America no longer meant slumber, certainly there is light somewhere—Tokyo, Singapore, Moscow—and with your smartphone in hand, you were connected.
Empires were created from this new, ever-connected mindset.

As MySpace and Facebook swept through campuses throughout the world, mobile phone producers saw even more untapped potential in the addiction to log on. In June 2007, marketing superpower Apple introduced the iPhone.

Combining a phone, an iPod, email and internet all into one device was genius. The device instantly appealed to the crowd that may have considered a smartphone a bit unnecessary.

When Apple reduced the iPhone’s price in 2008, it became almost as pervasive as the iPod among the Millennials, the named coined for Generation Y.

Professors at George Mason University have varying mobile-phone rules. Students of Professor Ellen Todd, a loyal Mac user, and Professor Jessica Mathews, an iPhone owner, are certainly familiar with the professors’ humorous yet unwavering approach to the absolute dismissal of mobile phones during class time.

Still, in every semester and in every class, regardless of a professor’s personal regulations, a phone will ring. Silence will fall and students’ heads will begin to turn, and one terrified student will silence the phone and wait for the professor’s reaction.

With the development of these handheld computers, the communication platform of humans has evolved—devolved some may say— into a fabric of virtual social networks and text communication.

Some may predict that we are forming into the society as witnessed in E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, a society where tangible human contact had long gone the way of the Dodo.

Nevertheless, smartphone users cannot deny the convenience, efficiency and productivity that the devices offer, even if that capability turns red lights into an opportunity to check your email.