Visits From Inside The Black Mirror

Four years ago, the first iPhone was released and it still remains as a popular aspect of our technological culture today. Though it is in its fourth iteration with more to come, the iPhone continues to be one of the best selling smartphones. In a fast paced world with new technology constantly being released, the iPhone is still remarkable although some might argue that it is outdated and overhyped. This device is more than just a phone to consumers, but another way to connect with the world. There’s just something about this device that has Americans camping outside Apple stores and enduring long lines to get their hands on one. Although the iPhone may seem like just another smartphone, it is a cultural phenomenon because of the way it

“The digital revolution has clearly produced a large number of innovative products and services. Some of them have become multibillion pound companies and transformed a significant part of our lives” (Document 9). “Technology deserves some credit for lifting the institutional and bureaucratic barriers that often limit creative talent. In any area of creativity, creative products tended to be judged mostly by formal experts on the subject-matter. And as sensible as their views might be, they will also be affected by biases, politics and errors of judgment” (Document 9). All of this, when you boil it down means that cellphones are useful tools and should be treated as such and otherwise maximize your

Technology, the advancement of knowledge and productivity through the application of tools, information, and techniques to create an effortless process, has ultimately lead to the declination of our society and our future. In “A Thing Like Me,” Nicholas Carr addresses the development of technology from the day it was created and how it initiated an immediate impact within the lives of humans leading to an unhealthy dependency. Carr establishes how technology, what was intended to be a tool, has become the “pacifier” of our generation. This “pacifier” causes a loss of freedom, not through the laws of the government, but rather with the values of freedom one holds within themselves. This freedom is the individuality that distinguishes each person from the next, and forms a desire for the development of oneself through the experiences of life and the wisdom that is acquired along the way. Technology has blinded man from this pursuit of self-enhancement and with the advancement of technology occurring daily, there is no resolution. Each day people are confined within themselves and the pieces of technology that will continually limit them in their lives. Freedom is more than just a concept of laws instilled by the government, it is the thought process found within each individual person and their “hunger” to become more. With technology, social media was created and immediately immersed within our lives. The society of today has

“In the last 50 years, up to 100,000 Americans lost their lives due to inactivity leading to some sort of conditional disease such as heart disease [including the laziness within people of society]” (Wise 12). So many people have died from becoming lazy, doing nothing but go on their phones, devices, rather than doing everyday things. Technology has changed the way society approaches life, always depending on it rather than themselves and others. The society today consists of nothing but TV screens, telephone, smartphones, iPads, and items the 19th century would consider a dream to lay hands on. A book written by Bradbury presents lack of effort people put into their lives and society; Bradbury predicts how the future will become later on in the society. Becoming more similar to the laziness and ignorance in the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the society today struggles the society today struggles with dependency on technology which results to lack of social interactions with one another and failure in becoming literate with books.

“More than three billion people worldwide now use the internet (Time), and 80 percent of them access if from their smartphones” (Smart Insights). A smartphone is a mobile phone that performs many of the functions of a computer, typically having a touchscreen interface, and much more. There is an abundant amount of smartphone brands out there in the world and while they all cost different prices, they all perform the same job. Each person uses their smartphone for various reasons, whether it’s for work or to make calls or texts. Smartphones have changed society in various ways, both good and bad. Although countless individuals think that smartphones have ruined American society, smartphones have actually benefited society because of more safety precautions, information on hand, and entertainment.

The evolution of technology is constantly occurring in order to be more helpful in society. Therefore, a new gadget comes out within months or a year because of how it’s constantly evolving and how clients always ask for more. Andrew Sullivan wrote an essay in 2005 and talked the once popular iPod. In his essay, “Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld,” Andrew Sullivan uses the rhetorical triangle, visual imagery, and one of the rhetorical appeals, logos, to achieve his purpose of how technology has impacted human interactions.

The world is constantly changing and maneuvering to reimprove itself for the better of the people, or so one may think. There are so many new innovations and forms of technology that are constantly changing. “Look here’s the iPhone 8” and then the next year “look here’s the iPhone 9s plus.” A person would think that as society gets older, it just continues to get better and better; however, in many instances it has been shown to be questionable if today’s society has changed and reimproved at all. Every day on the news there is something wrong with the world like a shooting, or a plane crash, or some sort of harmful violence. Technology has been seen to worsen issues as well as improve them. Advertising has been able to spread through technology

Dependency on Smartphones Albert Einstein once said, "I fear the day when technology will surpass our human interaction. We will have a generation of idiots. " Today’s generation has become so dependent on our smartphones for information. As smartphones have become a great and easy tool for things such as surfing the internet, communication, and navigation.

It is easy to tell that the obsession with technology has had major effects on people’s way of life. Political elections are polluted by voters that believe it is a game, Students with answers to questions shoved down their throat in the form of useless facts and a society in which individuality is dangerous. Ray Bradbury demonstrates these issues in his book Fahrenheit 451, by showing how technology desensitizes the population, diminishes thinking for ourselves and limits individuality.

In today's society there is no escape from technology. We are completely submerged in our iPhone, ipads, computers, and gaming systems. These gadgets give us the opportunity to be connected to each other and the rest of the world at all times. But, this is not a glorious step in history. Technology blinds us from the real world. As John Tudor said, “Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except technology.” We may run our lives with the help of our iPhones and computers, but do these forms of technology in turn control us? At first glance these new advances are greater steps to making our lives easier. But, when examined closely a large portion of technology is the cause of many problems in our society.

Technology is becoming more and more a part of our culture. In the textbook, Henslin used the term, new technology, which is “the emerging technologies of an ear that have a significant impact on social life.”(p. 62) Our computer, phone, tablets, T.V., etc. is allowing us to see other peoples' culture through different types of social media. Over the years computers had become less bulky, and as the year went on they develop a laptop which makes it more portable. Phones had become more high tech, and it is currently like a mini computer in our hand. It allows us to surf the web and do much and do many other incredible things. In “Merchants of Cool” companies are advertising towards the teens, and most of the teenagers are receiving those advertising

Like the spread of a zombie plague, the modern technology obsession is rapidly infecting the public. Our attachment to new technology and new digital media is a self-perpetuating problem which breeds conformity, loss of autonomy, and repetitive patterns of consumerism. This trend creates the fear that we will become increasingly dependent on digital media and technology, becoming a mindless horde which only exists to consume. Furthermore, increased access to media through technology increases each person’s exposure to its “zombifying” influence. Critics have taken up the zombie motif in order to draw parallels that warn us to consider the consequences of our changing behavioral patterns.

At first, I was going to analyze and write about smartphones, however I found it more efficient to write also about a particular smartphone to narrow it down from such a broad technological artifact, such as answering who designed it, what for, what their position and the impact they want to have on society was, and their future visions. Therefore, I chose the iPhone as the centerpiece of smartphones I will be analyzing and an emphasis on applications. However, some of this information is relevant and interchangeable to all other smartphones. IPhones and smartphones allow us to access constant information and offer it the way we want it, as it is completely customizable now to fit our learning style. They keep us organized, send information to us in different ways, even shape and offer solutions such as for politics, economies, problems whether individual ones or globally. Smartphones capitalize on shared knowledge and has opened the door to inventors and those who have the knowledge to make our world a more connected place and lives easier by sharing it with us to use. We are able to communicate with other people far off, through space-time compression or shrinking-space to gather news and information.

Technology has, since the primitive years, always been used to invent tools in order to solve problems. This would, in turn, simplify and make man’s life easier. Through advancements in the field, man has become more efficient on both the macro- and microscopic level. Anything nowadays can be attained with either the flip of a switch or a click of a mouse. One particular technology that came about in this time was the smartphone. Since 2008, the smartphone, a device that combines a normal cell phone with a computer, typically offering Internet access, data storage, e-mail capability, etc. all in your hand was deemed as ground-breaking technology and created one of the largest and most competitive market in terms of

Pew (2017) examined the change in ownership of smartphones over time in the United States, the relationship to owning other mobile devices, and the prevalence of smartphone dependency. American are increasingly connected to the “digital” world via smartphones and other mobile devices. According to Pew research surveys in 2017 over 95% of Americans own a cellphone of some kind while 77% own and operate a smartphone. The percentage of smartphone ownership has increased tremendously compared to the first survey conducted in 2011, where only 35% of Americans had a smartphone. Smartphone ownership also exhibits a wide variation based on age, household income and educational attainment while maintaining a correlation with ownership of other mobile devices.