It’s a classic tale of my generation.
“I remember when my friends and I could go to lunch and enjoy each other’s company without any cell phones ringing or texting under the table,”
my mother loves to say.
The adults in our lives can fight it as much as they want, but every one of them is falling victim to the mobile revolution in some ways. While my mother doesn’t have a smart phone to check constantly, I have noticed her increasing need to have her cell at all times. She will say (referring to new apps on my smart phone) with a sigh,
“Now you’ll never be able to unplug,”
as I catch her texting my dad from the table at the Mexican restaurant. No matter how much flack we may receive from our parents, they are growing guiltier of mobile addiction than I would have ever thought.
While my mother only uses her phone for calls and texts, many of us use our phones as our main source of information-gathering. For example, we can get our social fix from our facebook app, our music news from our SIRIUS app, and our “real” news from our Newsweek app. The generation of smart phones has made media outlets portable and accessible at all times. I find that I spend decreasing amounts of time on my laptop everyday as I find more apps on the market taking away the need to log on.
It amazes me how quickly I have made the change from computer to mobile, and every day millions more smart phones are distributed. The transition has been a speedy one, and in order to remain on the forefront of their audience, most media outlets are having to jump on the app-bandwagon before they are left in the dust.
Media seems to be a sort of chameleon in its ability to shift and change to satisfy our growing appetites in the mobile world. But don’t get comfortable here, Media—there’s a long road ahead.
rurussell 