Here, Take Your Book!

A Memory From Past Triggers Observations

“Here, take your book.”

My Mother

I was surprised by the sentence as my mother returned my mobile phone to me. Yes, mobile phones were not as personal as they are today. That was nearly about a decade and a half ago. Back then the smartphone was a relatively new thing in my part of the world. I was researching the convergence of technologies – it was also a reasonably new concept. All the people I knew still read in those days – “real” paper books.

Some of my reading had shifted to digital means and a smartphone offered a good opportunity to go digital. It would still be a couple of years before I would go fully digital. If I look back I realise the many advantages of reading in the digital format which paper books could never allow. Many people still say that they prefer reading their paper books for reasons as varied as the physical feel of the paper, which cannot happen in digital books to the smell of paper. I could never find those reasons reasonable and have always felt that such people have been “lazy” in adopting digital means to consume the word! I may sound rude but then that is what I feel is the fact.

That day, my mother was using my phone to speak to my brother, a very usual thing for anybody to do. At the end of the conversation, she tells me to take my book. The surprise on my face would have been very obvious, but the growing realisation and that smile on her face told me what she meant. A few days back I had told her that I would no longer require a paper book to satisfy that strong urge of mine to read something. I wanted to be able to read using my smartphone. I would soon be graduating in a way. As an engineer and a curious one, technology by default invites my curiosity and depending on my needs it gets adopted faster than it would for most people. Reading books by digging out the phone from the pocket would be one hell of convenience for a lazy guy like me!

As I look back to that day, I realise how that small piece of glass with some circuitry baked into its back has come to be an essential part of work and play, not only for me but for most people who use a smartphone. Just three decades back all the possibilities that I list below could not have been even imagined. Times have changed rapidly and most humans who have access seem to be stuck to digital media, now there are quite a few, from immovable ones like TVs, and desktop computers to iPods, tablets ad smartphones which are portable.

How I Use Smartphone

The things I do like the rest of mankind would with their smartphones are: –

1. Speaking to people. That happens more and almost all the time. The privacy barriers of appropriate time have long since been breached.

2. Messaging and chatting with others both at work and for personal use.

3. Emailing – including official ones. It is convenient to send out a digitally signed document while travelling on the bus and get a response before you reach your office.

4. Clicking photos and making videos. The number of photos which I have clicked now, I could never imagine in those days of analogue cameras which used reels and allowed only a few shots.

5. Researching topics and things on the internet. As more knowledge gets shared and more connections happen, a smartphone has become a tool to access all that knowledge. In fact, now I take a deliberate effort to avoid digital over-consumption. That coming from a bibliophile has a lot to say.

6. Reading news – that has gone down considerably now and is almost fully restricted to op-eds. News feels like a waste of time these days.

7. Checking weather conditions – I remain a weather buff ever since my schooling days. In fact, now I can keep a near real-time tag on the weather of all the places I want to – that is the true power of technology.

8. Using the calendar to organise schedules. It is now an essential part of my workflow – something which wasn’t the case before I started using the smartphone the way I use it now.

9. Taking notes – nearly 100% of note-taking is digital now, barring of course a few times where phones are not permitted. That I think is a good thing because I still love to use my fountain pens.

10. Blogging – this won’t be a surprise for many, with apps like Drafts and Apple Notes, writing blog posts on phones is convenient, especially when one is on the move.

11. Listening to music, my music library has everything that an audiophile could ever want, all organised and accessible very quickly. The earphone/headphone tech available to really get into the groove is actually mind-boggling when compared to about a couple of decades back.

12. Looking at those high-quality pictures and videos of nature is just taken for granted now. What amazement those National Geographic magazines offered me as a kid, is now available to me in my pocket. The enthusiasm to explore the world somehow seems to have dulled that bit and I won’t attribute it to growing up.

13. Sharing ideas on social media. It was a craze for me once before I realised the toxicity of it all and stopped visiting social media sites as much.

14. Keeping tag of my expenses is that much easier and more convenient now. Apps like YNAB allow insights into personal expenses which would take considerable time in the years gone by. A smartphone enables that greatly.

15. Keeping travel logs. Unlike any other digital device, a smartphone is the most convenient tool to log entries about your travelling. From photos and videos to notes a smartphone is always available for that. Pen and paper cannot match the experience both in recording and in the recall.

16. Using map functions and navigation. It is so convenient that I feel that the natural cognitive ability of humans collectively as regards distance and direction seems to have dulled considerably. I feel that a sizeable portion of the urban population would soon be unable to move from place to place without the navigation support of smartphones.

17. Playing games – Angry Birds was a favourite, once followed by the more advanced and resource-hungry games like Need For Speed and Call of Duty which I can now indulge in with my kids on a weekend. Three working men in three different places can hit bean bags and go online to catch all the excitement. It’s convenient of sorts especially if one is not addicted.

18. Voice Recorder. This was a function that I use for recording lectures in the class or for recording the conferences as it helps in aiding me in preparing the minutes of the meeting and meeting notes.

19. Using the GPS, Compass. My work domain allows me ample opportunity to use the GPS and the Compass functions. There are many places where there is no connectivity and it is at such places where the conventional map and compass comes in handy. Generally speaking either I use the GPS or the Compass, never have I used the two together.

20. Measurement Tools. Then there are the measurement tools that are available that allow me to measure small distances with fairly good accuracy. Even though I have the tool in my pocket but I have rarely used the tool, some things take longer to change. A friend of mine uses it all the time. He finds it not only convenient to measure but also to record the measurements.

21. Magnifying Glass. The camera of the iPhone also allows it to be used as a magnifying glass and click photos of those very small things which are difficult for the eyes to discern.

23. Tracking my bike rides. As an enthusiast cyclist, the smartphone allows me to generate inserting metrics, which help me keep motivated and gives an insight into aspects of cycling. For me, almost all the needed data is captured when used in conjunction with any of the numerous apps that are available.

24. Logging my exercises and workouts. Another great use of the smartphone. Recording the various parameters allows me to remain motivated and on track with my fitness. Whenever I slacken up I get the idea very clearly just by looking at the stats that the smartphone can throw up.

25. Tracking my vehicle’s maintenance and mileage. I have always loved driving all over the country. Using a car to the brink as regards its performance or understanding the varying mileage patterns has become that much easier nowadays. Which automobile assist apps, a lot more can be understood about your ride and its health. I have yet to go to that level, yet.

26. Dictionary. The smartphone is a much smarter dictionary, far more efficient and comprehensive and useful than the conventional dictionary. iPhone has a built-in dictionary and allows easy access to the words one wants to search.

26. Calculator. Every smartphone has a calculator and it is a convenient thing to carry it along everywhere if one is into doing many calculations. For the engineers, there is the scientific calculator and they come in various types meeting any kind of requirement one may have of using a calculator.

27. Banking. There is hardly any function related to banking that cannot be done using a smartphone, be it paying the house rent or investing money, be it paying the instalments for a car to transferring money, most of the things can be done using the phone.

And of course, the smartphone can be used for reading books. That is something that I have stopped doing for many years now that iPad provides a better experience. But in those days my smartphone used to be a go-to device for many things including books and articles. My mother’s observation and the sentence she used were a big surprise then. It would not be as big a surprise today.

What I was surprised with over a decade ago has become a reality today. There are more online classes, courtesy of the pandemic which proved to be a Black Swan Even of sorts. This has been a rather swift change but not in an abrupt way. The changes which have been continuous and consistent are permanent. The permanency of these changes will make mankind go to the next level – good or bad depends upon how you look at things. The results are there for all of us to experience. The times ahead are different as technological advancements are changing the way we do things these days. Things have already changed considerably and will change even more rapidly driven by power-users who are The Gods Of Technology Fetish and who will push mobile technology to the next level. Meanwhile, the newer generation remains as clueless about TVs without remotes as we were about the idea of living without electricity. There is nothing as permanent as change. I have almost started to believe that if the newer technology is not adopted fast, we will be old sooner than in our years.

So I would recommend that go ahead and try to read a book on your phone, you never know when your folks start calling a phone a book!