My friend hands me his sleek iPhone. “Ask it something.”
“What should I ask?”
“I don’t know, anything.”
I decide to start with an easy one. 'Who is the President of the United States?' Icons flash and a computerised voice asks me to wait a moment. In a second the display shows a bio of Barack Obama, including the date he was elected and what number President he is. Impressive, but then again an intelligent fifth grader knows who the current President is. I ask a more difficult question: 'What is the distance from the Earth to the Sun?' and am correctly answered straight away. Apparently Siri, Apple’s latest voice-recognition ‘personal assistant’ app, can answer a lot of things. It also seems to cope with questions that contain syntax that isn’t quite so straightforward for a computer. For example, instead of asking ‘Will it rain tomorrow?’ you can ask ‘Will I need an umbrella tomorrow?’ and Siri is sufficiently knowledgeable to understand that ‘umbrella’ in this instance is synonymous with ‘rain’. Siri struggles with some commands, particularly names and references to popular culture (e.g. it can tell you the radius of the Earth but struggles to name the best-selling album of all time) but the app is a testament to both human ingenuity and a nice reminder of how powerful our own brains are.
Siri is one of a number of clever applications designed for the increasingly ubiquitous smart phone. These devices have now outgrown the simple label of ‘mobile phone’, indeed in most cases they have become powerful pocket computers. The term ‘phone’ has effectively become a place-holder word for any device which can make and receive calls and text messages as well as play games and music, browse the internet, hold calendar information and a variety of other apps which ostensibly make life easier. The ability to access the internet, particularly maps, in a variety of settings and situations is a handy feature. In fact it’s hard to remember that as little as six or seven years ago such technology seemed Bond-like. Ah yes, that dark period before iPhones, BlackBerrys and Galaxies, in which cutting edge ‘phone’ technology included Snake II and the ability to compose your own monophonic ringtone. But it’s interesting to wonder: do smart phones really help us?
Consider the culture in which smart phones arose, and indeed, thrive. It’s a society of instant answers, quick gratification and constant connection. Email can easily be synced to a mobile device so that you are effectively contactable 24/7. It’s common practice now for employees to equip staff with company smart phones which can become virtual tethers to the office. Such technology is indeed impressive, but its actual benefit to society is questionable, especially considering some studies suggests that many employees find it harder to separate their work and personal lives thanks to technology making it easier to bring the office home. Smart phone technology isn't limited to office life either, and Facebook and Twitter have evolved their services to become even more mobile friendly, including the incredibly cool and/or incredibly annoying Facebook 'Check-In' feature which ensures everybody knows where you are and who you're with, even if it's "at home with the hubby lol!" Somebody has even shot an entire feature film using a (slightly modified) Nokia N8.
There is also a particularly interesting phenomenon that has surfaced which is worth examining, in which any unknown fact or tidbit that arises in conversation is unceremoniously given the Google (and now Siri) treatment:
“Did you see what happened in New Zealand…wait, who’s their Prime Minister again?
“Hang on, I’ll check………………(awkward non-conversation point - feel free to check your own messages while the other person does their thing)………………….John Key.”
“Right, so yes, that rugby match I watched last night was in New Zealand, and the All Blacks had made two tries, and…”
Surely this is a good thing. Who wouldn’t want us to arm ourselves with correct information quickly?* It’s worth wondering, however, to what extent this phenomenon is indicative of Generation Y’s (and perhaps indeed humankind’s) penchant for always being right as opposed to our penchant for actually ‘learning’. Many conversations now will be interrupted at least once with such an occurrence, but the necessity of such is often questionable. It merely breeds the culture in which everybody always needs to be right. Smart phones are indeed handy for situations in which the correct information is vital (medical emergencies, heated pub arguments) but often we are left with an increasing number of situations in which smart phones replace human interaction as a means of conveying information.
A particularly pertinent example happened to me at a restaurant recently: one of the menu items appeared foreign to us and, as most diners do, we endeavoured to find out exactly what it was. However, instead of asking the waiter as would have been the norm in years gone by, a dining companion promptly whipped out his iPhone to find an answer ‘instantly.’ Naturally the waiter returned at that moment, and due to his sense of humour he allowed us to wait for the iPhone to bring back the answer in 45 seconds which he could have provided in ten. Had the waiter not appeared at that moment the iPhone would indeed have won the ‘race’, but I wonder if the answer was so vital that it wasn’t worth waiting a few extra moments. The beauty of asking a waiter is that they might have a personal recommendation, or provide quirky or interesting information which only ten minutes worth of internet searching might provide. It also robs the meal of its customer-waiter interaction, which is an integral part of the dining-out experience. Of course, depending on your waiter, this might be a good thing.
The other phenomenon that smart phones have brought about is the ‘busy hands’ syndrome, in which even the smallest amount of incidental downtime (waiting for a train or a friend) is filled with tinkering around on the device. There are Facebook notifications and emails to check, text messages to write (my personal favourite is writing “I’m here” to the friend you’re meeting which is received by them exactly five seconds after you spot each other), games to play and apps to buy. Apparently we’ve concluded that just because our hands and eyes are busy with an iPhone nobody notices the fact that we’re sitting alone. I pride myself on my pretentiousness and as such have challenged myself to not using my phone unnecessarily in incidental downtime. This means that sometimes I have to sit at a restaurant table by myself for several minutes, which is indeed a harrowing experience without the safety of the phone. I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to achieve though, because it must be remembered that before smart phones people busied themselves with books, crosswords and newspapers which suggests that even if everybody left their phone at home we wouldn’t find ourselves in some sort of human social utopia in which everybody hugs and talks to each other on the train instead of updating their status.
I’m not a Luddite (I bet every Luddite says that), but sometimes I do pine for the days before smart phones were everywhere. Of course technology marches on and I can soon see myself wishing for the days of 2011 when the smartest thing your phone could do was talk back to you. In the future when humankind is collectively enslaved under a giant hovering iPhone that has crushed human ingenuity and creativity, please don’t say I didn’t warn you.
*Dictators and encyclopaedia shareholders are two groups that spring to mind.
