How Have Smartphones Changed American Society and My Life
The appearance of smartphones is a very interesting phenomenon from any point of view. The most important one, to my mind, is how they affected the way people socialize. The communication became really easy: now, every person can make a call or text anyone almost in every other place in the world! It made the whole idea of "distance" in communication altered. Today, you don't have to wait for a couple of days for your letter to arrive to addressee – it's almost instant.
In the United States their influence can be easily spotted due to the wide spread of smartphones. In fact, in 2014, 58% of American adults owned a smartphone and 83 % of young adults have one of their own (Muralidharan & Ferle & Sung, 2015). Every sphere of social life altered. I don't have to read every newspaper to find news, now all of them are sorted to my interests on my smartphone. It's became so much easier to be involved in social life of your town, district, country etc It is now important to be a part of social groups that share a common purpose, people engage in various social activities, which affects their social wellness and belief in themselves (Kim & Wang & Oh, 2016) This fact is connected with a notion, that all the social activities are being somewhat watched by one's friends, colleagues and even people, one might now know, through posting respected information in social networks and social services (like Instagram, for example).
Social media became so much closer to a regular user of a smartphone, that it established some kind of new platform for communication. Thus, today using your smartphone to interact with others, talk about everyday problems, share information about events or activities seems like the most convenient way of socializing. Imagine, how would you find out about a new concert of your favorite band, which is taking place in your city BEFORE smartphones came out? Maybe, you could hear about it on radio or stumble upon some advertisement. But today, it's shown in your news feed on the screen of your phone, there is a reminder from Google about the event. It became hard to miss or social activities.
Americans perceive smartphone advertising as an important source of product information that overshadows its intrusive nature (Muralidharan & Ferle & Sung, 2015). That's in one minor downside of the smartphones nowadays; yet advertising still may increase level of social engagement of Americans.
Personally, I am fascinated by the influence, which those devices had made in a couple of years on American society. Phone, which used to be just a mean of communication, became universal tool for everyday life of a modern person. It's so convenient have all of your social data gathered in one little smartphone.
I can reply a business letter, make some calls, search for the information about next conference and share it with my colleagues – and that's all is made on my palm and only with my fingertips.
But on the other hand, that quick availability of social interaction made some people substitute it for "real", live communication. For example, some individuals get so much sucked in the web-social life, like communicating over social networks, that communication with real people doesn't appeal to them. It's not that big of a problem, but such issue exists in modern "digital" society.
Smartphones became very important part of social life in modern society. They altered the way we know socialization nowadays and made it so much easier and convenient to be an active part of society.
References
Kim, Y. & Wang, Y. & Oh, J., (2016) Digital media use and social engagement: how social media and smartphone use influence social activities of college students. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 19(4).
Muralidharan, S. & La Ferle, C. & Sung, Y., (2015) How culture influences the "social" in social media: socializing and advertising on smartphones in India and the United States. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 18(6).
