Lars said, “No, I do not have a smart phone, I boycott. Nowadays on the train, people only play with their smart phones”.
Then, I start to think, and I have a lot of questions, I really do not answer them:
How much difference is between playing with smart phones and reading newspaper/books on the train?
Do smart phones or other related products hamper or improve the communication? Do they influence society positively or negatively in general?
Do we worry about the next generations?
Is the society going forward or backwards while we are worrying?
Or, let’s think from the other angle: are we smarter and wiser than our parental generation?
What are the criteria to measure the improvement or step-back of the civilization of the society?
The same criteria we use now, could be used in the future too?
The same conclusion we draw now, would be still true in the future? For example, “Times” magazine published an article stated: reading from paper gives much better result compare to that of reading from the screen. Will they get the same result if they re-do the test 15 years later?
Nature has its selection, so does the society.
Everything has two sides, good and bad. When new things come, there are early adaptors, there are early and later majorities, there are laggards.
Which are you?
Hmm…interesting questions. I suppose it depends a lot on what people actually do with their smartphones. As far as enhancing cognitive abilities, etc I suppose hours of angry birds or facebook scrolling will do a lot less than reading stimulating articles (as you would with newspapers). On a side note, the trains used to be quiet and void of conversations even before smartphones…Still, you raise some interesting thoughts. Check out this related video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY
Oh that video is so condescending. Just because communication is different and seemingly more hermetic today that doesn’t mean it strips us from possibilities; I would even say it creates more. It’s all about how you use it, as you said. This is a similar one, but somehow more factual and less smug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Bkr_udado
Mili, That is quite cool!
milindian, Yes, the meaning of this blog is to raise the question. New thing always brings new questions, as I said, everything has both sides. Sometimes, It is also hard for the new things to take their places and survive: Radio survived, even though cassettes and CD are dying… What will Facebook be like in 10 years???? I do not know…