“What do I Need That For?” - The Potential in Your Pocket (3 Min read)

Q: What is a phone?
A: Potential.

It could be a million things, or one.

The decision of what it becomes is up to the individual, steered by manufacturers, software companies and regulators.

Advertising in tech commonly focuses on the specs — "X much faster than the previous model". A clean, justifiable metric believed to sell.

Q: What does the average person use their phone for?
A: Calls, entertainment, messages, social media and web-browsing. In essence communication and engagement with information.

The word phone can be a bit of a misnomer. Portable touchscreen computer is a more appropriate conceptualisation, though that doesn't quite have the same ring...ring.

Whatever it is, a modern smartphone is anything and everything but just a "phone". At any given moment, a phone could be a journey to a different world, or a catch-up with an old friend. The tool you need to write a novel, or a bad habit that makes you irritable and permanently drained. The perfect camera for your overseas trip, or a poor representation of true human connection.

Somewhere along the line tech companies found a way to metaphorically attach technology to the bottom of our brainstem, then attention became currency.

Q: What do the innovative technologies of the world misunderstand about the older generations?
A: Most have arrived at a place where more is not the answer.

We are conditioned to lean on the technologies of today, while constantly looking over the shoulder at tomorrow's inventions.

Next time your grandma, grandpa, mum or dad says "what do I need that for", don't mistake it as a headstrong resistance to change. Perhaps for some, it is — but what they really mean is "what value does this add to my life?"

There are foundations of assumed knowledge associated with most tech that younger generations take for granted.

Comfortability with any new piece of technology has and always will be a blend of interest, a constant willingness to learn and persistence. All of which is hard to pursue when the price of admission becomes spending countless hours asking questions, wondering what happens if you tap the wrong thing and being passively annoyed at yourself for not knowing what you don't know.

To have the wisdom to place time with family, a catch up with a mate and the simple comforts of life over what random people think about you on the internet, is not something to be looked down upon.

So you decide that technology must be something pragmatic — something in service to your quality of life.

You buy a phone with certain features, install (or have someone install) the apps you think you want, and you only ever use it when it needs to be used.

But this risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The potential housed in that pocket sized device can only be revealed by wading through the fog of understanding.

Q: So what's the middle ground?
A: Understanding technology well enough for it to be used deliberately, in service of your life.

As far as I can see, the longest way round is the shortest way home.