iPhone

The age of the Cyborg, if we were not cyborg’s before the introduction of the mobile phone then we are today. Personally my mobile phone experience begun when I was 16, before this time more than most of my friends had a mobile phone and needless to say having a mobile was the only way to be “cool”. As more and more of my friends got mobile phones for birthdays, Christmas, dance recitals and the like I consider myself a rebel for not having one. My older sister “grew out” of her old phone in a matter of speaking, thus a demon was born. I now have had a phone ever since and would consider myself a prolific user. I send hundreds of text messages every month and make dozens of phone calls, however I consider my mobile phone use as merely helping me to facilitate the life I now lead. My current mobile phone, can make phone calls, send texts, take photo’s, can access the internet and has a mobile friendly, facebook, twitter and myspace application, it is affordable and easy to use. Last week I left my mobile at home for the first time in a long while, and I wouldn’t be home for more then 8 hrs that day. The feeling I had was one, that I was missing out on something and this is when I decided that my mobile phone is far more central in life than I realized. The most surprising thing to me was I did not “need” it at all.

The iPhone has taken the lead in providing the information that we apparently so desperately seek available all the time. Inside outside, near and far the iPhone has again revolutionized what was already a very refined piece of equipment. It is user friendly it is relatively cheap and it is unbelievably popular the world over. Levinson (2009) disagrees and says at a few hundred dollars an iPhone isn’t cheap. Considering the iPhones popularity it price isn’t an issue, and one can sign a contract to pay off the iPhone with a month by month payment on top of their existing plan, this is available on most cellular providers in this country. This one touch screen had become the most influential screen of the 21st century in my opinion and it’s less then 3 years old. The mobility of social medias allows instant access to the information super hwy it makes freedom of speech ever more powerful. The most intereting notion Levinson is that this type of media has made what he calls “useless places” into useful places. Like sitting in a doctors office endlessly waiting for you appointment, or stuck in a jammed elevator… these static places have no become useful places because of the connectivity of a device so many of us rely on.

We are cyborg’s, phones are the most influential screen in the 21st century and with time, these things only become more powerful and more influential. Is there a point where verbal communication wont be the primary way of communication?