Smartphones and Their Impact on Our Lives

Smartphones, along with other daily technologies, are must-have devices in today’s generation because they make people’s lives much more effortless. The smartphone era is often mocked as the owners have become overly used to its assistance and abilities. Instead of becoming a life saver, the smartphone has arguably become a source of distraction and a medium for crime; it holds access to the user’s location, personal accounts, and even an invoice computer that is theorized to always be listening. While these arguments are compelling, they must be neglected. This generation only continues to upgrade smartphones and technology. Although mobile phones can cause trouble to the user, we have become accustomed to the devices and have made them essential to living today. In this way, smartphones are important and special as their rewards outweigh their risks by a large amount.

While some of the claims about privacy invasion through smartphones are true, there is a way to be safe about it; one just has to know what to do. The article “Do Smartphone Power Users Protect Mobile Privacy Better than Nonpower Users? ” emphasizes that being hacked is often more likely depending on the actions that users take (Kang & Shin 179). The article’s goal is to examine how much the average person knows about security measures that can help maintain mobile privacy. A study in the article surveyed users’ “power usage”--one’s knowledge of how a device works--to see if there’s a relationship between knowledge of the device and privacy-related issues (Kang & Shin 179).

The mean of the people surveyed showed that for every 3.03 people, only .69 read the privacy policies before they download an app, know how to turn off the tracking feature on the device, and understand privacy settings (Kang & Shin 180). Thus there is a positive correlation between how well someone knows their own device and the safety precautions they take. Going off these results, the question must be asked: is it the smartphone’s fault for having these possibly dangerous features or the user’s fault when there are ways to prevent them? One logical reason behind overlooking these safety tools comes from the overuse of having a smartphone to just check media and videos, which leads to not knowing how one can protect himself.

While many believe that smartphones harm the youth, it has actually helped them become better as students. A student article blog called Getting Smart published an article stating that smartphones have certain applications that can make a student’s career easier. Applications like Dropbox, which helps students keep track of their work, and Splice, a big helper for STEM majors, can make students smarter on technology usage (How Smartphones Make Students Smarter). New York Times posted an article on the new FAFSA app, which is the biggest source for students attending college, and how it made the process of applying for school aid easier (Carns 2018). This new application will give students a much easier time to apply, as before it had to be done in a out-of-date website on a desktop, which takes much longer.

Another article written by The Chronicle of Higher Education analyzed how the Georgia Institute of Technology, Arizona State, and Northeastern University gave their students Echo dots, computers that can answer any campus-related question and give reminders for students during their day (Ellis 2018). Ellis pointed out that “technology will only expand, and that lessons from the first year student use across the country can instruct future adopters,” thus making this experiment something available for many more institutions (Ellis 2018). As education is becoming more popular and students seek success, devices like a college Alexa will only come in greater use, as it does for a house.

Many believe that being addicted to the smartphone only makes the owner less bright; however, it works the other way. According to an article in The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, technology is categorized by sixth and seventh graders in three categories: “facilitating communication, making life easier and acquisition of information / providing the sharing of information,” while the only negative outcome of technology is that it is usually a big time waster and source of distraction (Dahgan 187).

While older generations consider that kids being so accustomed to daily technology is bad, Dahgan has proven that there is a correlation between the quality of the professions wanted by kids and their perspective in technology. As more kids knew about how to use their computers, they wanted to become engineers and doctors, because they know that technology is the future in the world. The study surveyed students in a school in Turkey and showed that out of the one hundred and nine students surveyed, seventy-three percent responded that it makes communication easier and gives a worldwide knowledge easier accessibility than before (Dahgan 189). This proves that technology has a positive influence and can be used for good by kids. While older adults think that kids being used to daily technology is a bad habit, kids have proven that they will use it as a resource instead of an addiction.

Although we face risks in becoming addicted with our smartphones and technology, the rewards we receive from them make up for it. This generation of smartphones can be overlooked if one doesn’t look at all the good it has done for us. We have gone from waiting for a letter in the mail to receiving a one-second text message, which gives relief to know if someone is doing well. With smartphone being our main source of how we get all of our knowledge around the world, there is no limit as to how much this can help people as it gets better and more obtainable. With new ideas invented everyday by engineers, new medicine breakthroughs with the help of technology, and much more; the best for us is yet to come.