The Smartphone Culture - “There’s An App For That”

When I think about the phrase “greatest impact” my mind automatically associates this statement with a positive connotation or outcome. After reading this week’s assignment for the discussion board (What wireless technology has had the greatest impact on today’s society and why), I automatically decided that the smartphone, hands down, has had the greatest impact on today’s society. As for the “why?” part, well that was easy…I asked myself, what DON’T smartphones do?! No, really, I challenge you to go an entire day without needing, reaching or grabbing for your smartphone.

Smartphones assist and support our ability to communicate with one another, entertain/educate ourselves and perform simple daily tasks. As I dug deeper into my thoughts, I started jotting things down that came to mind (I usually do this when trying to find a specific direction to go with an assignment or project) in order to organize and gather my thoughts. With one swift move of my pen, I paused for a second and quickly realized that all this positivity could just as easily be turned into negativity. The word that appeared in front of me was socialization and it quickly brought my mind elsewhere. Among all of the amazing things our smartphones help us to achieve, socialization is something that teeters on the edge of enhancement and reduction.

All of this brought me back to square one with the phrase “greatest impact” and I really started to think about what those words actually mean. Greatest impact doesn’t necessarily translate to a “great” or “positive” outcome or effect, instead greatest to me now meant significant importance or consequence. This excited me because I could now further state my case that the smartphone has indeed had the greatest impact on today’s society because it has positively and negatively impacted our society…therefore making it the “greatest”.

When you really think about it, it’s truly amazing that such a relatively small piece of hardware can be so powerful when it comes to utilization, society and culture. Smartphones have created a culture their own with all of the attractive bells and whistles they have to offer consumers:

Communication:(personal and professional)

            Voice, Video, Text, Audio and Email

Entertainment:

            Mobile Internet

            Gaming Console

            Photo/Video Albums

            Social Networking

            Book/Magazine downloads

            Photo/Video Editing

            News/Gossip

            Drawing/Painting

            Music Library

            Health & Fitness

            Sports Scores/Updates

Utility:

            Calculator

            Calendar/Schedule

            Weather Updates

            Travel (check-ins & e-ticket bar codes)

            QR Codes (instant information)

            Navigation/GPS

            Personal Hotspot

            Mobile Banking/Finance

            List/Note Storage

            Alarm Clock

            Reservations

Education:

            Language Translation          

            Flash Cards

            Interactive Games

The term “there’s an app for that” stands true, the smartphone culture thrives off of application downloads. Application markets have allowed us to do practically anything via our smartphones, virtually impacting each and every aspect of our daily lives; leading to my theory that smartphones have created a culture all their own that users find impossible to resist.

Technology is steering traditional etiquette towards a new set of modern manners, a totally different outlook on values, social behavior and interaction. Our obsession with the smartphone is changing and altering our social norms in many ways.

“Impatient” - Smartphones are driving us to be more and more impatient. Gone are the days pondering, thinking and waiting to reply to emails, text messages, phone calls, Facebook messages and/or tweets. Because of the accessibility and connectivity that come along with smartphones, we now expect immediate responses. If we do not receive this immediate response, we automatically assume the momentary lapse of time will bring bad news or no news at all, for that matter.

“Disrespect” – Smartphones have found a way to turn our everyday actions into disrespectful, withdrawn or offensive behaviors in the eyes of “our elders”. Smartphones are being used in places they would have never been accepted before: Museums/Art Galleries, at the dinner table, at social events and at formal gatherings or holiday parties, just to name a few.

“Face-to-Face Socialization” – Smartphones give us the ability to hide behind second screens as often as we would like. This has not only impacted the way in which we gain/make new friends but it also impacts how new generations display confidence, speak publically, confront one another and verbally manage situations in large groups. Having these devices in hand 24/7 allows us to ignore the “outside” world and concentrate solely on your personalized “digital world”. Less face-to-face interaction can have a significant impact on personal and professional relationships. Door to door sales are virtually dead and have been replaced with new media channels like mobile marketing campaigns. Employees now feel more comfortable talking to their clients on the phone or communicating via email, rather then address them in person.

“Creativity” – The notion of “free time” no longer exists with a smartphone in hand. Creativity thrives off of boredom, allowing individuals to explore their inner most thoughts wandering within their heads, leading us with the urge to read, paint, write, dance etc. all on our own time. When we add our cellphones to the mix, the content we come across dictates our thoughts, actions and creativity, leading us to a more conformed society without even realizing it. People no longer depend on their intellect or their minds ability to create or innovate from complete and total scratch. Now were “searching” for inspiration in order to create. Smartphones are slowly taking away our ability to be creatively independent. Look at Mozart and Monet, they took their internal creative abilities and morphed them into pieces of art that came from inspiration within their minds and souls, not through a wireless device.

Smartphones have effortlessly paved the way for users to be consumed with “The Smartphone Culture”. There are many useful and helpful benefits your smartphone provides like quick mathematics, reserving a table for dinner and getting you from point A to point B but all these benefits come at a price. Without a doubt, the smartphone culture has absolutely had a significant impact on today’s society. 

Sociocultural awareness – Is your behavior helping or hindering the cause?

**SIDE NOTE: This post is a little unusual and contains a less professional approach then the rest of my blog**

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge” – Benjamin Disraeli

How many times have you found yourself in a situation like the following?

You’re in a public place relaxing, serving a customer or just walking down the street and a situation arises where you find yourself face to face with a very confused individual that has little to almost no ability in communicating with you in English? Rather, this person seeks obvious help using broken basic words or points around like he/she is trying to catch an imaginary butterfly?

I’ve found myself in many situations like this when I worked the restaurant industry in high school, tended bar in college and moved to Orlando, Florida for a few months for my job (extremely transient city!). Most of the time I found myself instantly frustrated, hastily apologizing for not being able to help and scurrying away like this person had a disease of some sort. Subconsciously, I found myself thinking, “Ugh, your in America, speak English!!!”

So, here I am four years later living and traveling around Europe over the past three. During the first two years, I slowly uncovered and discovered my personal level of ignorance in regards to language through my own experiences in other cultures. BUT, it wasn’t until this year that I have been able to fully understand the general ignorance of most Americans (when it comes to language barriers) through the experiences of those who have come to visit.

Almost every person who has made his or her way to beautiful Vienna, Austria has made a statement like this at least one time during his or her stay (whether I witnessed it myself or was told about it in frustration later). “I had a great day, but this one individual at [insert random place here] was so rude and looked at me like I had 5 heads… all I wanted to do was [order or buy] something and they had no idea what I was talking about, isn’t this a big tourist destination? Shouldn’t these people know English?!?”

This is where my newfound realization triggered an urge to ask myself this: “As an American living overseas, what I can do to help my friends back home and those currently around me?”

I usually respond to these rants aka comments with the following statements. “How many times have you been frustrated with someone else not speaking English in America, well…because they are in America? Your in “someone else’s” country, don’t you think they are saying the same exact thing about you? What makes you, as a native English speaker, so special that people should know English, regardless of your geographical location? How can you complain about another’s inability to speak and comprehend your language (chances are they can fluently speak several other languages) when most Americans only know ONE language.”

Most of the time, I get an empty blank stare for a few minutes while the person processes what just happened…. Then I see it click. Their body language shows signs of shame, their head isn’t poised so high anymore and the look in their eye is that of realization and disappointment in their previous actions.

My goal is not to “preach to” or demean the individuals who come to visit me, I solely want to instill the same understanding that I have incurred over the years into those whom I love and care about.

I’ve come to understand that there’s a huge gap in an individual’s mindful intelligence and their ability to truly assimilate the knowledge within them. Break down your barriers with compassion, patience and understanding so that when you find yourself in this very situation, you have the courage and respect to do what you can to help.

I know that when I get home, I will charades and hand gesture the shit out of any language barrier “conversation” that comes my way…even if it helps just a little bit!

The power of understanding can lend itself to a lot of greatness, but the biggest greatness it has bestowed upon me, is the ability to be just a little less ignorant. Travelling has given me more insight, wisdom, perception and richness that any professional or accredited institution ever has - and for that I am forever grateful.

Truly Amazing!! Watch How One Company Connected the Entire World using Twitter!!

Extremely Inspiring and uniquely innovative!!! 

Facebook Officially Snags A Passport from The Land of Search Engines

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wish you could instantly pull something up that you saw entirely way too long ago on your Facebook feed? or maybe your planning a trip somewhere and want to reconnect with some old friends that might still be in that area?

In situations like these, I usually find myself saying to someone else “I saw the cutest picture of someone’s dog on Facebook a few days ago, you have to see it!” or “Do you know anyone who still lives in the Miami area?” and for some odd reason I cant recall who exactly posted the picture I wanted to share or what friends of mine (ours) still live in Miami. I tend to be a little on the stubborn side, so when I want to find something, I’m determined to search until I find it. This is when I find myself scowling my timeline for hours just in hopes that something will spark my memory to give me the information I need in order to visit whoever’s page I was searching for in the first place. Most of the time I give up based on the “seasick/overwhelming” feeling that takes over my body as a result of the constant scrolling and scanning I’ve put my senses through.

I’ve heard some buzz around the social media industry that Facebook is building a helpful solution to this very problem, its very own search engine. Facebook is essentially allowing its users to search within the network they created for more specific results based on particular wants or needs. Right now, it’s only in the beta stage and will only focus search results on people, photos, places and interests. This is where Facebook’s handy new feature claims it will save you A LOT of time and searching effort.

Apparently the feature will allow users to ask questions in simple sentences just as you would when using Google’s search engine. So, how would I benefit from this new internal “search engine”?

In this case, I would be able to simply plug the following sentence into the search field; “which of my friends live in Miami?” Facebook actually filters your results and ranks them based on interactivity and connections within your network. Facebook would provide you with a generated list of friends who currently live in the specified area. The great thing about this calculated search approach is that you’re closest and most trusted or recent friends appear at the top of your list, leaving your acquaintances at the bottom.

By no means is this new feature going to give Google a run for its money, but for now, it will provide Facebook users with a cool feature that lots of people could find extremely useful!

Keep at this one Facebook! I think this search engine might have a lot of potential to bring in revenue through commercial, business, products/services results in the future! 

European Social Media Stats

Since living in Austria, (for about 2 1/2 months now) I was extremely interested to see how Europeans interact with Social Media. I know that technology advances and utilization vary greatly across the globe, but I found myself wondering "How different can social media use REALLY be in such a "westernized" part of the world" (this of course coming from my experiences in Vienna, Austria...I often sometimes forgot I'm even in Europe!) 

I recently offered a friend here my assistance in helping her to market/advertise a Chalet in Austria via social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) from the ground up: creating accounts, engaging/targeting an audience and coming up with marketing solutions and strategies. I thought, "Why not?! I've got this social media marketing thing down in the states, i'll just use my current knowledge and we'll nail this project on the head!"....then common sense kicked in and I did a little research, since I was initially interested anyway.

I came across this Infographic HERE and thought it was pretty interesting. I'm intrigued with a few of the numbers, especially with Austria having the lowest percentage of users, 39% who utilize social media for reading and writing blogs. If you notice Portugal, 76% of their social media users engage in reading and writing blogs. Geographically, the two countries are just as far away from each other as Manhattan, NY and Miami, FL. So, how can it be that there is such a significant difference in how many people within these two countries utilize social media for the same purpose. (I just need to state that I understand that they are two totally different countries and therefore hold two different cultures, but the geographical stats still spark my interest). Plus, I just got done explaining the importance of blogging to build a brand and attract and engage an audience to this friend i'm helping out...guess I should recant those statements!! 

Its no secret that in the United States blogs are one of the most important trends and growing platforms in the industry. I'm now on a personal mission to try and rationalize/figure out what the differences are in each of these individual cultures that could directly cause such conflicting numbers. Wish me luck!!!

Four Ways To Attract Your Online Audience

The best multimedia sites stay on top of changes in technology and how users communicate and interact with the internet (videos, pictures, games, podcasts, social media, interaction, customization, graphics etc.)

Successful sites achieve results in many ways. The first way is with writing. Good journalism skills are universal especially when it comes to the online world. With widgets, videos, photos and simple headlines it’s getting easier and easier for readers to skip over the journalistic part of a story and jump straight to the video or skim over the headlines that stand out to them in order to gain information about a story they are interested in. The writer needs to have the skill to gather and present information that they know is eye-catching and relevant to its audience regardless of how the reader consumes the content. Writing needs to start strong, stay strong, simplified and remain active.

The second way that successful sites achieve results is through the proper use of visuals. With technology growing steadily and many multimedia platforms available at their fingertips journalists have numerous ways to help tell stories using tools other than just text. Journalists are now able to take advantage of powerful, strong, influential and captivating videos and imagery to go along with each and every story they publish.  With this type of addition to a story online journalists have the potential to reach many people with more of an impact. Though uses of video journalists are able to give the readers an inside feel of the emotions, actions and reactions happening around the story. Though these readers are able to convey emotion and create a connection to the story, writer or website.  Don’t get me wrong, the journalistic part of the story is still very important, but there’s no substitute for great visuals combined with strong writing. This winning combination is what’s needed in order to stay on top of the industry and one up other sites. Readers aren’t going to continue reading a story or visit a site again if they are not impacted in some way by the content they interact with.

The third way that successful sites achieve results is through navigation. The site needs to get to the point fast, if the readers have to spend any more than a few seconds skimming the page to find what they were looking for they will leave that page just as quickly as it loaded up. It’s also important to front load the content within the site. Put the most important content in the supper left area of the screen along with other important pieces of information across the top of the screen. Make sure to emphasize the most important content with bold text, colors, visuals…anything to attract the readers’ eyes to exciting material.

The fourth and final way that a site can achieve success is through proper use of Social Sharing. Journalists are now able to invite the audience/readers to interact with the information. Online readers are now able to explore information they are interested in on their own, take part in online discussions, post comments, add perspectives, take part in polls and questionnaires and take part in reviews.