Apple’s iPhone has altered our lives for better and worse
Our phones have eliminated the boredom our species experienced for millenniums
There’s been an I-hurricane of news all week and I’m not talking Irma.
I mean the 10th anniversary coverage of the iPhone’s invention — and you can hear the buzz of its ringtone around the world. It’s a reminder of just how much that tiny, shiny object and its Android relatives have transformed our lives, for better and for worse.
The iPhone has revolutionized our entire concept of getting mail. It has re-defined the word “friends” and enlarged our workplace to include anywhere we are — from the beach to the bedroom.
It’s turned us into a selfie nation of 24/7 photographers, changed how we act and maybe how we think. The motto of our times should be: “iPhone, therefore I am.” For starters, like most people, my phone is a genie in my pocket. It’s my navigator, calendar, calculator, newspaper, music player, alarm clock, menu flashlight, step-counter, weather forecaster and postman.
Oh yeah — I can also make phone calls with it.
It’s changed my behaviour in countless ways. When driving or even walking in other cities, I don’t have to remember directions anymore, like human beings have done throughout history. I just obey the barked commands of my GPS, as if it was the captain and I was a drone.
I’m free to walk, talk and text at the same time — though my GPS still doesn’t tell me when to avoid lamp posts.
ONLINE REVIEWS
In stores, I consult 35 online product reviews before buying a TV, a toaster or a ballpoint pen. Before walking into a restaurant I browse so many reviews there’s no time left to eat. I now read about restaurants, instead of going to them.
My phone is also my personal secretary. It translates for me when I’m travelling and it autocorrects all my messages, so I get everything write. When I want to remember something, or have a sudden idea, I just dictate it to my phone, which turns my words into writing, then sends me a text.
“Buy pickles. Move car by 4. Write column on 10th anniversary of iPhone.”
On the downside it has “disappeared” many things I don’t use anymore, including my watch, compass, calendar, maps and CD player. That’s why the industries that make these things are largely disappearing — along with newspapers, books, diaries, postcards, encyclopedias and cameras.
It’s also why Kodak went bankrupt — and Apple is now the richest company on Earth. Yet for all this, the iPhone isn’t just changing the world around us — it’s also changing us humans.
Our phones have eliminated the boredom our species experi- enced for millenniums, because now we’ve always got something to fiddle with — and it’s way more entertaining than worry beads.
When I’m stuck for 22 seconds in a supermarket lineup I find myself fondling my phone and checking my messages (again), or checking the weather to see if it’s different than five minutes ago.
When I walk to the dep I browse the hourly Trump headlines, or test my phone’s latest “voice recognition” app by shouting out tricky words like “Couillard,” or “gefilte fish.” Passersby look at me as if I have Tourette’s — and maybe I do.
The way we get lonely has changed, too. Walk into a coffee shop, or restaurant and no one is actually alone — they’re online talking, texting, playing games, or sending photos of themselves sitting at the table, alone-buttogether with their phone.
We rarely just stare into space anymore, reflecting or daydreaming, with that lost-in-space gaze. Texting and browsing are the new gazing.
Our phones have made us less attentive, too, less patient, more jumpy, more hungry to be constantly entertained and stimulated, because we have lower attention spans for slow-speed information — and I bet you’ve barely lasted to the end of this rambling sentence.
We don’t watch life as carefully anymore either — why look around you at boring buildings, trees, people, sky or even deadly traffic? Instead, we can watch cat videos.
Our phone has changed our relationships too, as we chat online — instead of on street corners. Many people are now uncomfortable improvising actual conversation on the phone, or even talking face-to-face with people. They’re happier messaging them on Facebook.
If your house caught fire, what’s the first thing you’d grab — your photos or your phone?
In studies, many iPhone users say they’re in love with their devices, or they fall asleep holding them, like a partner. I’m still waiting for a TV series called “I Married My Phone” — starring an iPreacher who proclaims: “I now pronounce you man and phone.”
That little machine born 10 years ago has dramatically changed our lives — but has it brought us “the key to appiness” — or a new iSolation?
I really don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse — but whatever it is, don’t try to take mine away.