I made an impassioned plea ages ago at the DJ that we not look at the world through multi-app glasses. IOS apps were all the rage, and people were running around at the DJ trying to parlay everything we owned into something we could sell for ninety-nine cents, although they were thinking that maybe they could get five bucks, and I was telling them that even free would be asking too much. My belief was that the bloom would quickly be off the app rose, and that while people would find a handful useful and would no doubt always keep their eyes open, the market was crowded and getting more crowded and there were other ways of succeeding with out content. Now the statistics show that 60% of all the apps in the App Store are never downloaded, and a quarter of those that are downloaded are quickly discarded.
Right again, Cassie.
One thing that amazes me is the number of people who are so plugged into Facebook that, if I even breathe over there, I get a comment or a like. As a matter of fact, almost everyone I know is on Facebook, and to be honest, I’m hard-pressed to distinguish old use versus young use. There are farts every bit my age who are as active as the kids on my team. There may be an initial age-related buy-in algorithm, but I’ve met as many kids who refuse to join Facebook as I have lawn-yellers, and for roughly the same reasons, a mix of misunderstanding, autonomy and general crankiness. The point is, start with possession of a portable device that allows you to be virtually 24/7 in touch with everyone in the universe, and throw in a playing field (FB) where that touching can take place, and you’ve got what most people are doing instead of buying the latest apps. I’m not saying that FB is it, as there are variations on the theme in Twitter and simple texting and Foursquare and the like, but in general, users have decided that mobile devices are social tools. Everything else is secondary. (By the way, businesses today, looking to succeed in the mobile marketplace, have all decided that they must be “social,” so there is a Facebook page for every product known to man. In the earliest days of the web, there was a homepage for every product known to man. Same concept, different medium. The fact that every man, woman, cat and dog up and down the line mostly have better things to do than “like” Heinz Baked Beans, and even if they do “like” Heinz Baked Beans, they will hardly be dependable repeat visitors except insofar as beans do repeat in their own musical way, does not deter businesses from taking the paths of the least resistance. Don’t they realize that Disney faked that lemming footage?)
So all these apps are all well and good, and everyone no doubt finds a few useful beyond the social arena, as well as a game or two to pass the time and maybe something to read, but in essence, mobile devices have become communications instruments in ways that could never have been imagined by someone of my generation. It’s a wondrous thing. Think about it. When I was little, we had a telephone in our house. It was a party line, which meant that if you picked it up, there was a chance that someone would already be having a conversation on it. If you wanted to make a call, you gave the number to the operator. If the call was any distance away, you had to use a special operator. The arrival of our first dial phone, with our very own number, was a step into the modern age. Phones developed in all sorts of ways, but until you could carry one in your pocket, here was the bottom line: if you called someone up, you had no expectation of always reaching them. In the earliest days, it would ring until you gave up. Later, you might have a message machine, which at least meant that your call wasn’t totally in vain. But at the moment when you put the phone in everyone’s pocket, you are now in a world where there is an expectation that, if you call someone up, they will answer.
That’s a big change in our social existence, and you can perm this change across all the other forms of mobile communication, they all being more or less the same thing, and certainly all derived from the same thing. In my lifetime, we have gone from the potential ability to communicate with people at any distance to the omnipresence of communication with everyone everywhere. We have gone from a world of missed connections to a world where connections are unmissable. We are always available, and some of us are not merely available, but literally on. Facebook shows who of my friends are logged on at any time, and I can communicate forthwith, but that doesn’t matter, because if I call them or text them, I know with certainty that they will know it, and more to the point, if they don’t respond immediately, they have chosen not to respond. How dare they!
This is not a small change in our existence. As social creatures in the most basic sense, this transcendent sense that communication is guaranteed at all times in all places changes the basic sense of our socialness. For one thing, everyone you’ve ever met is now linked to you forever. You can’t move on from your friends in high school because they’re your friends online and they keep up with you and you keep up with them. Relatives can’t sort of fade off into the distance because when they announce that they’re “in a relationship” everyone from Uncle Mort to Auntie Minnie knows it immediately. They also know when you were in town and didn’t even stop by for a cup of coffee. Husbands checking into the No-Tell Motel on Foursquare will be immediately discovered by their unsuspecting wives, and vice versa. “I called you but there was no answer” is a thing of the past, because it becomes “I called you and you didn’t answer.” Before, there was a chance you were elsewhere; now, you got a beep on your mobile, so you knew I called, so why didn’t you answer, you crud!
I offer no value judgments on any of this. I’m just writing down some thoughts that were bothering me after reading Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book, where in her future 40 years or so from now, everybody has trouble calling people up on the telephone. The tech of the book hardly matters (and I loved it, don’t get me wrong), but that story could never be written as it is today because if everyone had been able to get everyone else on the phone, much of the narrative would have been pointless. The nature of the world has changed dramatically because of the existence of mobile communications devices. And we have taken to those devices with omnivorous enthusiasm.
Interesting times.
1 comment:
Interesting point about Willis. I read the book several years ago, and that had not occurred to me.
My first few jobs were telemarketing and 'proactive ' customer service....basically calling people up to see if they had any problems with our product in the latter case. The product in this instance being a newspaper with an editorial policy to right of Atilla the Hun, only without the milk of human kindness to add some empathy. The best part was occasionally getting people who thought the had cancelled the paper, or who were getting the paper without the knowledge of their spouse.
I don't like the phone so much to this day, and pre cell phone usually left mine off entirely unless I was calling someone, to tell them off probably,
That said, communication systems surely change. As a college DJ. Circa 1990, my morning wake up show had a little ditty in regular rotation named "the homecoming queen's got a gun
The refrain of course was "everybody run, the homecoming queen's got a gun" and was somewhat graphic suffice to say.
Probably not a big hit these days .
Post a Comment