It’s no strange seeing people walking down the street looking at their smartphones or sitting down on a coffee shop playing around with their tablets. Technology has become a culture and now is shaping and changing the future.
Nomophobia is is the fear of being without a mobile device, or beyond mobile phone contact.
The signs of nomophobia are feeling anxious about the idea of running out of battery and constantly checking for messages and sleeping with a phone. If this is the facts, then I would guess more than 70% people in the world who own mobile devices have nomophobia.
According to eMarketers, there are 1.91 billion smartphone users and 1.06 billion tablet users in 2015 worldwide, and predictably there will be more than 2.16 billion smartphone users and 1.2 billion tablet users in 2016. Imagine that many of those people could actually have more than one smartphones or tablets.
As to the number of laptops and PCs users in the world, I couldn’t find much information on the exact number. However, according to a report by Forrester Research, there were over one billion PCs in use by the end of 2008 worldwide, and is predicted there will be more than 2 billion PCs in use by end of 2015, while the world population is 7.383 billion, data from Worldometers.
Remember when Microsoft recently launched its Windows 10 for PCs, while Apple launched OS X for Macs. At the same time Android 6.0 Marshmallow and iOS 9.1 were also recently released for smartphones and tablets software. At this month alone, I upgraded both my laptop’s and smartphone’s latest software and operating system.
Let’s break down the progress of the two giants- Apple and Samsung. The first generation of Apple iPhone was released on June 2007, and now they’re working on iPhone 7, which will be release in Summer 2016. One of Apple’s biggest competitor Samsung launched its first Galaxy S series smartphone on June 2010; they’re launching Galaxy S7 in early 2016. On the other hand, Apple launched its first iPad on April 2010 and its recent model is iPad Air 2, released on October 2015. Samsung launched its first Galaxy tab on September 2010 while its latest model Galaxy Tab S2 released on September 2015.
In just short amount of time, the two giants change the world significantly. I can’t imagine what smartphones and tablets will be like in year 2025, maybe there will be iPhone 17, iPad 6, Galaxy S17, and Galaxy Tab 6. Who knows? Maybe those smartphones will be transparent, or even able to be planted in our own skins.
According to a study from Flurry Analytics in June 2015, people in the United States spend 198 minutes (3.3 hours) on their mobile devices in average per day, which has beat time spent on Television (168 minutes or 2.8 hours). According to a research by Silentnight, people spend 8 hours and 41 minutes on media devices (this includes laptops, PCs, tablets and smartphones), and 81 percent have their smartphones switched on all the time. Sleep experts warn constant exposure to devices leads to poor sleep.
We all know it, if we don’t get enough sleep, we’ll be grumpy and won’t be able to focus tomorrow. Grumpy leads to a bad day, and a bad day will worsen our performance at work. Then, what we usually do is using our mobile devices to chat with our friends and tell them how bad our day has been. Realize it or not, almost every mobile device users have become so dependent with these little machines, even when it comes to socializing with our friends.
Social media. It has changed the way of communication forever. According to a report from GWI from early 2015, the average person has five social media accounts and spends around 1 hour and 40 minutes browsing these networks every day, in which Facebook remains the largest online community with 82 percent of internet users are members and 42 percents are active users (around 1.25 billion people). Following YouTube with 24 percent and Twitter with 22 percent active users.
Say hello to mobile chatting applications and say goodbye to the old SMS. More and more people are going towards the mobile messaging apps because they have features that regular SMS don’t have, like emojis, voice recordings, attaching pictures, videos, even files. According to a recent report by Statista, WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messaging application worldwide with more than 800 million monthly active users. Facebook Messenger is the second most popular with 700 million active users.
The invention of internet in 1983 was the beginning of the Digital Age. Just over 30 years, the technology has grown really fast and have influenced people and culture; it has brought the world closer through its online community. If the Internet is a country, it would be the most populated country with 3.2 billion people in it. The Digital Age is Shaping the future, and no one knows what the future will be like.
All of these reports and research above are true to me; I’m a very much mobile person, and I spend a lot of time on the Internet whether it’s on laptops or smartphones. I also have more than 5 social media accounts and am very active on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Almost every night, I sleep with my phone on, unless I forget to charge it, then it dies in the middle of the night. I probably have a nomophobia (though I haven’t checked with a psychologist).
I was born in the 90s and am a digital native; I have witnessed the changes the Digital Age has made to the world. And lastly, I very much enjoy how technology spoils me, and I am eager to know what the future will offer.
PS: I am looking forward to iPhone 17 in year 2025.
RAINY DARONO 