There are a lot of notable inventions for media and communication that have had a huge impact on the world and how we communicate. The most notable technology that has changed the world in the context of media and communication is the smartphone. Currently, there are 6.8 billion smartphones in use today. Each year this number is increasing by five percent. 

Smartphones are the most convenient way of communication. They also combined many other aspects of technology into one which added a lot of convenience. Prior to smartphones, people had to carry a camera, calculator, walkman or C-D player, printed photographs, wallet, and an address book, to name a few items.  Smartphones began to rise in popularity after the first iPhone came out in 2007 and became more mainstream in 2010. The smartphone ushered in a wave of innovation beyond the initial applications offered. In the beginning, there was a phone, email, text messaging, music, and an Internet browser. The following year technology companies introduced applications (apps) on the newly launched app store. This provided the user with a range of applications that took advantage of the Internet connectivity the phone provided. It allowed companies to reach customers in a more personalized way. Today there are 1.8 million apps in the Apple app store and 3.7 million apps in the Android app store. The smartphone has changed the world in many positive ways, but It seems researchers tend to focus on the negative aspects, especially now that they have collected data over the past 16 years. Smartphone usage has changed our daily behaviors and not always for the better.

Research has found there are a lot of negative connotations toward smartphones especially when it comes to young users. Parents are having to place restrictions on children’s smartphones because of the amount of time they are spending on social media. Some adults are also finding they need to place restrictions on their smartphone usage because of the amount of time spent on email, texting, and social media. Chad De Guzman wrote about how China wants to restrict children with their smartphone usage in his article “China Wants to Limit Children’s Smartphone Use.” He talks about the negatives of cell phones and how China was to combat these negatives to have their children be more productive and in the end be smarter and more successful.

Science Direct has a Study called “Smartphone Addiction and Internalised and Externalized Aggression against Adolescents: Evidence from Longitudinal Study and Weekly Diary Study” that proves adolescents are becoming addicted to their smartphones and thus they are getting more aggressive. The main cause of the aggression is that adolescents have become more impatient. Adolescents demand that everything happens instantly. It is that instant gratification we hear more and more about in society.  We do not have to search for things, think as hard, and work as hard. Everything loads instantaneously at our fingertips. If someone is deprived of one of these things it can lead to increased aggression. Therefore, adolescents are becoming addicted to their smartphones because of instant gratification and aggression when something is delayed. Another explanation for aggression and addiction is the constant stimulation the smartphone provides us. Technology companies are getting better at gaining our attention and keeping our attention so we spend more time on their applications. More time on these apps leads to addiction which in turn leads to more problems caused by the addiction. 

There are a lot of concerns about smartphones negatively affecting people’s mental health. Many findings show smartphone usage increases depression and anxiety. People tend to spend less time with people and more time on social media, a replacement for the time we used to spend with people in person. Some findings show more people have a negative body image because of what they are seeing on social media. It is important to note, all of these findings (depression, anxiety, and negative body image) are found more commonly in young females. 

Smartphones are also distracting. There has been a lot of research on how people are more lazy and are not as hard-working as they were before the invention of the smartphone. There is also a current trend of fewer teenagers going to college. More teens think they can make it on their own using technology. We see this example with the increase of influencers. TikTok influencers are the most popular at the moment, but since the beginning of social media, there have been many “influencers” in all subjects, especially in fashion. These influencers show off their glamorous lifestyles and have a relatively easy life, which is attractive to young teenagers growing up. Why would someone work hard, study, and pay for college to only live an average lifestyle? Teenagers want the glamorous lifestyle they see on the Internet, the fame, and they want it now, without putting in a lot of hard work. 

China is trying to combat all of this negativity related to smartphones by limiting children’s phone usage. They are implementing data-based technologies that track their usage, how distracted they are, and other nit-picky that will be reported to their school and parents. Usage for children under the age of 18 would be limited to a maximum of two hours a day. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) would also prevent children from accessing their smartphones from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

While all these restrictions are being put into effect on adolescents, technology companies purposely design their apps to make them more engaging. They are making the user spend more time on their app, which attracts more advertisers. The companies can gather more data on the users as well. The two main ways social media companies make their money are by advertising, and selling people’s data. There is also the tracking of people’s location, search history, and upselling that takes place by using apps. One way social media companies have made their apps more engaging is by focusing more on video-based content. Technology companies have also gone to integrating their technology into different aspects of our lives. Now people can stream on their TV, smartphone, iPad, and computer. Amazon is a good example of this, they have their website Amazon Prime where one can purchase products, but Alexa can order your products from there, look up information on the internet, and stream music. Companies benefit from this by being in every aspect of our lives, so we continue to use their products and they make more money. 

At the beginning of smartphones, a lot of people were excited about the new technology. There was nothing like it at the time and it was a big leap in technology and it even seemed somewhat futuristic. Researchers were still worried about the technology but there might have been a lot of more important concerns that they were missing. 

The Wall Street Journal published an article called “The Rise of Apps, iPad, and Android” in 2010. Although this sounds late at the beginning of smartphones this is when Android started to gain popularity. This was also a win for Google and Verizon since they had a partnership with them. It talks about overall the increase in technology, what is happening, and what is new. They call 2010 “The year of the app” which is interesting looking back on. Apps are a regular everyday thing, even your average person with the right knowledge can make an app, but they could have been right on when they were at their peak of everyone talking about them. Another interesting thing they note is there were a lot of people fighting over patents. The top companies were fighting for the rights of the technology because whoever owns the right to manufacture the technology has more control over the market which equals more money. There was and still is a lot of copying of each other with smartphone technology so companies would want to prevent this so the competing companies are not eating into their profits. 

There were some negatives that the newspaper article had to point out. There were a lot of part shortages due to the popularity and demand. This slowed the spread of the new technology at first, and companies lost some revenue because of this. They pointed out security concerns. Most of their concern was about hackers.

This newspaper article has a relatively positive tone and is excited about the new technology. They talk about the first iPhone, what has and will improve, and how it is good for Apple to have competitors because they will have to compete to have the best technology. They also seem relatively excited about the new Android phone. Now that smartphones are popular and smartphones are going wireless. This meant that 4G technology would improve the user’s experience. They pointed out how America can get cheap parts from China and sell a lot of smartphones back to China. Smartphones were really popular and this seemed like a positive for Americans. There was also the start of a digital wallet on one's smartphone which was convenient for users. Last, they were excited about location-based services. This also meant better user experiences with apps.

It is interesting to look back on this source. The information and concerns are accurate, but there is little concern for privacy from the technology companies. We were more worried about outsiders rather than the actual technology companies like we are today. The early adopters of smartphone technology seem like they were more concerned with getting the technology working and out there. We had no idea what it could turn into and the different struggles and problems we would run into which all started from smartphones. 

Another newspaper article published by the Wall Street Journal called “Technology and the New ‘Me’ Generation” talks about how smartphones were starting to make people worse. They talk about notifications disrupting events, and people not being available as much because their work can follow them and call them. People always have something to keep them busy like communicating with people, social media, games, and putting in some headphones and watching a movie or listening to music. This allows people to tune out and is bad for human interaction. They talk about how smartphones have also inflated people’s egos, an example of this could be how people only post their highlights on social media. There is also not the human element so people feel like they can say whatever and it is not as real as in person. They also talk about how people have followers and likes and how this can boost someone's ego. The definition of friend also changed. Friends can be people you know and follow but there might not be a strong relationship or anything relationship at all. The newspaper continues to complain about how smartphones have destroyed in person's life. Many things are contributing to this but the article is very negatively against popularizing smartphones. Again, they were right to be concerned about the new technology, but they might have had the wrong concerns looking back on it.

Comparing what we thought would come from the smartphone technology versus what actually happened looking back on it, there were a lot of concerns we did not think about. First, social media might be the biggest thing to come from smartphones. It is how the younger generation communicates with friends, and the world, how they receive news and information, and how they express themselves, many people can make a living off it, and it is how advertisers reach consumers. There are a lot of negatives that came from this that were not thought about like higher depression, anxiety, and more people having a negative body image. Next, we did not take into consideration what the companies developing these technologies were capable of doing. They track and mine our data about everything we do online. This is invasive to our privacy. There are no regulations in the United States on companies gathering data and as long as they have what they are doing in the user terms and agreement, they do not have to follow any rules. 

There were many positives and negatives to come out of smartphone technology. Most people now cannot go a day without their smartphone because so much of our life revolves around it. There are a lot of conveniences that came with smartphones, but there were many negatives that come with this fast-evolving technology. Yes, it affects the young especially hard because they do not have the life experience to deal with social media, but it also affects adults as they navigate their own emotions. We need to take a serious look at the mental health of people and the usage of smartphones. In a world where we compare ourselves to others so often we can get caught up in the idea that we need to be a certain way. This puts added stress on our daily lives and leads to more mental health issues. Since there are a lot of conveniences we have learned this can lead to laziness and increased aggression, especially in adolescents. Nevertheless, smartphones have a huge impact on media and communication and have changed the world in practically every way. 

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