Mobile phone technology is quickly increasing, in not only its functions but the designs and the availability of them. When thinking of mobile phones I remember when I was a little girl and my Mum and Dad had these big heavy brick phones that had buttons where there was about three letters on each number key, and the phone had only a tiny thin strip display. These phones back then when they first came out only allowed for calling and in some cases messaging people.
When I look at the phones today in comparison it is very obvious of how far technology has advanced in 15 years. The phones today have bigger screens, screens that allow you to even visit a webpage and see it at a substantial size, in some cases the key buttons no longer have three letters to each key but now the buttons are set out like a computer keyboard, and even more some phones no longer have buttons!!!
Mobile phones are no longer used for just making phones calls and messaging but as Goggin (2006) puts forward, ‘The characterization of the mobile phone is as an all-in-one device that is potentially capable of displacing many other technologies (such as cameras,
radios, music players and calculators)’. Because mobiles are so advanced today they are quickly becoming a significant object in many people’s lives and I know this and if you don’t know this all you have to do is look around. Pretty much every second person you see these days is carrying or is on their mobile phone and I am one of these people and I am sure you are too. At first when all these new technological devices started coming out I was like ‘o cool’ but I always said to my self ‘ I don’t need that’ it was just some gadget to appeal to a market to gain more profit. However over time I have even been sucked into these devices and am now one that uses all the little gadgets on my phone, including the internet, camera, video player, calculator and the calendar function.
Today in the 21st century it isn’t right to pose a question, ‘will mobile phone screen become the dominate screen?’ Because it is already a dominate screen. People these days can’t even leave the house without a phone in hand, and when looking at the public it is easy to see that more traditional things are quickly fading, like a normal calculator, a dairy, and even now a lot of people don’t even have a house phone because they have a mobile. These mobile phones are now not only a device but a way of life. The question we should be asking is why have these devices become a way of life? Is it because these tiny objects are more convenient to the everyday person? Is it because that’s the way the world is changing? That these things have to be used to be socially acceptable now?
Even though I am one of those people who live by there phone, like many of us do. I do not feel that all the new functions people are bringing to them are all necessary. The things you can do on a phone now may be brilliant but I feel that we as a community do not need it. To have another screen that plays videos, take photos, and to go on the internet, what does it leave us with really? In my opinion I feel that having this device in our hand and engaging in it all the time only leaves us to be somewhat rude and in a way disconnected with ‘real life’. Yes it may be convenient but now sometimes its even hard to talk to someone when they have their phone in their hand because they are more focussed on what they are doing on it.
Reading the article by Goggin (2006) and the website http://www.northeastmovies.co.uk/series/24/micro-movies-classic has only made me think more that we don’t need another device that allows us to do all these extra things. I have however accepted the fact that this is technology and it is advancing and this is how it is being shown but quite frankly if these little nick knacks, such as video, internet and camera were taken off mobile phones I don’t feel myself or the community would be worse off. We would just have to result to more traditional ways.
But as Goggin (2006) also said, ‘Whatever the real use and functions, the device is made out to be an inevitable appendage without which life is difficult’. And this statement only supports how much we all depend on mobile phones now, for what ever reason we do, and thus makes the question, ‘ are mobile phone screens going to become the dominant screen of the 21st century’ more evident that it has already happened.
Goggin, G. 2006 Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life, Routledge, New York.
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