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| I found it amusing to find a picture of the phone with the caption "Nokia Shit Brick" |
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| Nokia 2100 |
From there technology seemed to take off as phones were being made with colour screens and cameras and radio and bluetooth and GPS and.. and.. and.. and.. and.. the list goes on... Fast forward to today some 7-8 years later. The convergence of media technology has enabled us to now carry 'smart phones' which have sometimes too much technology for us to handle from GPS to Facetime to Voice Control and HD Video editing...
Seriously, stop and think about all of the information and technology stored in your smartphone in your pocket.. How much of that do you actually use? and how many of you think that you would be able to cope with a Nokia 2100 or a Nokia "Shit brick"? Personally I feel like I could quite happily use a Nokia 2100 or similiar model.. (bricks are just too heavy for my liking). I recently went away with no phone or internet connection and actually felt quite good knowing that I didnt have to check to see if my phone had gone off or check facebook to see what Joe down the street is up to..
The convergence of media technology has allowed for this phenomenal change in the way in which we conduct our daily lives (we are now almost totally consumed by the media). Now we rely on this media convergence and what im interested to know is what happens when we reach "phone death".. I mean the Vinyl Record was replaced by CDs which have been replaced by iPods and Mp3 players. What is going to replace smartphones? Is it that smart phones have replaced the 'traditional phone' or will there be another technology that will replace these already complex smart phones?
I recently went on tour for a few days out in country Queensland and there was no access to the internet, I could still receive calls and texts though, and I too was rather happy knowing that I was not constantly checking my phone. In fact it too made me question whether we actually need a phone with all these gadgets and wonderful features. Funnily enough, due to being out in the middle of nowhere and having limited electricity, myself and the rest of the band found ourselves with useless phones that had very little battery life. It wasn't until the drive home where we realised we may soon need a phone for it's GPS feature, of course we didn't actually bring a GPS because we knew we had them on our phones. Unfortunately, all our phones died and we had to rely on good old intuition and sign reading to find our way back to the airport. So I'll be the first to admit I don't use half of the stuff on my phone, but I think it is a nice luxury knowing it is there when you need it. Where do smartphones go from here?? I'm thinking microchips into the brain might be the next step haha.
ReplyDeleteI am going to agree with AJobst here and reinforce the fact that having all these extra features are very convenient. Coming from someone who has had a Nokia phone all my life, I am now realising that I just have to have a smart phone. Purely for the convenience. I believe that too much convergence is a waste of time, but carrying around a GPS system in your pocket, as well as an mP3 player, and a mobile phone is pretty handy. There's my input.
ReplyDeleteI love the caption of 'Nokia Shit Brick'. I always joked around that I could built a house out of the Nokia 5510! I use my smartphone quiet alot. I use for talk and text of course, I've link 3 of my email accounts to my phone, I have fb, twitter and tumblr that I also use, can't forget the internet, camera, video camera, calendar and the odd app once and a while. The only part of my phone I don't use is the music player but I choose to use my ipod due to battery life that I had experienced with my iphone.
ReplyDeleteBut all of these put into one is really convenient as Ajobst and Dimity have written. With the way our phones have grown throughout the last 10 years I think the smart phone is here to stay for awhile!!! In the end they are just going to get more expensive!
I love my iPhone, when asked what I considered to be the most important things in my life I wrote my dog and my iPhone. I'm not shallow, it's just how I connect with my friends and family. But I agree that I'd be fine with just calling and messaging capabilities.
ReplyDeleteI think that the GPS feature on iPhones are very handy but because of it I rely too heavily on it and check the GPS rather than read the signs on streets so sometimes I wish that phones would just be phones.
I recently had my Blackberry sent away for some fixing. It didn't came back for about 3 weeks, and I was forced to down-grade to a Nokia 5320. At first it was horrible, it was almost like back to basic. I felt like I was learning how to use a mobile phone all over again. The screen was so tiny, had to press 4 times on the button the get the letter 'Z', and worse of all, the battery dies everytime I make a phone call! But besides all those, I find myself checking on my phone lesser, since I didnt had Facebook, Twitter, and other social feed to check. I do somehow enjoy 'a break' from my smartphone, knowing that the Nokia phone had nothing in it, I didnt bother to check it so often anymore. After I got my Blackberry back, I seriously didn't bothered to re-download all those apps that I previously had. It was rather time consuming to me, and honestly, I hardly ever used half of the things on my phone!
ReplyDeleteThe last picture you had there looks like it's trying to say "even if human beings extinct, technology would not stop us(mobile phones) to keep improving". Does anyone agree? Well, at least that's what I see it as.
I too had a 'Nokia Shit Brick' for my first phone! I was so pleased that I could message my friends, however it was still so uncool that I wouldn't take it out in public.. Kind of defeating the point of a 'mobile' phone. Several upgrades later and I too am now a proud iPhone owner. I'm also addicted (see my post on convergence if you require more details http://emcg733.blogspot.com/2011/09/convergence-culture.html), and now openly admit it. AJobst raises a great point through an experience which I can definitely relate to. The convergence of our phones means we rely solely on them, and when the battery is flat or we are somehow otherwise without them, we tend to feel a bit helpless. I was lost in Canberra and had to get to a motel I wasn't 100% sure of the name of in a suburb I had no idea how to get to. It was extremely frustrating and I eventually stopped at a pub to charge my phone. A little bit pitiful now I've actually written it but all the same, the convergence factor can be a blessing; but rendered useless if we are without the one item we rely on.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like I am the only one here who doesn't have a smartphone! My mobile can't do much else other than call and text people as it has a pretty worthless camera, terrible internet and games with very bad graphics. In fact, I would still be using my Nokia brick (which I proudly managed to hold on to for 6 years) if it was still alive.
ReplyDeleteBut the very fact that I'm the one who's technologically behind in this group, even though it's a given that I- as the technological hold out- have a mobile phone which also has a camera, the internet and games, illustrates exactly what you've been saying about convergence- that it is happening at an incredible pace. It is amazing, not just how fast the technology progresses, but how fast we are grabbing hold of each development... and allowing it to become an almost mundane part of our lives. As to what's next? I don't think we'll have to wait too much longer to start having media chips installed in our brains...
I think the thing I hate and love most about going back to my actual home (somewhere in the mountains that you probably have never heard of) is that I have no mobile coverage unless I go for a kilometre or two walk up a hill, or decide to venture into town. But then, I'm usually heavily reliant on my crappy internet access to communicate with friends.
ReplyDeleteTechnology has come a long way, and there's probably further it can go. I never thought about what could replace smartphones, I guess maybe supersmartphones.
I can say that I never had a 'shit brick nokia', I started off with an 1100, which was just a tiny version of the same thing, however it did have an inbuilt flashlight which was major cool!