My Mobile Day: A Journey
Our mobile phone… our best friend, our day-to-day partner, a part of our daily routine. No doubt, it became a necessity nowadays. People tend to be emotionally attached to these gadgets, and this leads to our completely detachment to the real world. Okay, I must admit it is nearly impossible to live without out it. All the things that we do the entire day have something to do with it or in better term, connected to it – our job, finance, school, even our day-to-day meal planning, it is all in there!
So now, let talk about what we are here for in the first place -- I walk you through a journey of my mobile day. Let me start off with a question to you- yes, You. Have you ever counted how many apps you have in your device? Have you ever wondered which one of them are the most valuable to you? Well, I consider myself as a “below average” to “average” user. Let us just say that in an active weekday, I only spend a half to an hour and a half mobile phone usage (this depends on how much work I have that day). Comparing it to my boyfriend, he has almost 3 hours spent each day using is mobile phone. Disclaimer! This differs during the weekends of course and let us not forget the lockdown that is currently in effect, my screen time is so much higher than my usual days.
24 over 80
| Fun Fact! According to a statistic gathered by Build Fire, there are an average of 80+ applications downloaded in a user’s device.
So, by that fact I just gave you—I think you have already figured out why this section is entitled that way. This is also another proof that I am not in to using mobile phones. I only have 24, let me spell that out – TWENTY-FOUR, out of EIGHTY applications on my phone which is roughly 15% of the average user’s (I am bad at Math, so sorry). Okay, okay I know I sound a “little” bit exaggerated. I have this phone for almost two years now, and of course I have un-installed some apps that I rarely/never used to open-up some space from my storage.
It is just mind-boggling for me to think that people have a lot of data stored in their phones; that they have 80 different software on their device, and they are willing to share their information with its owners. This just means that truly trust our phone or we just are fixated on them.
Socials.
Like the famous quotes go...
“Humans are social beings.” Or,
“No man is an island.”
We are born to communicate and collaborate with other people. They help us grow, define, and shape our beliefs, philosophies, personalities, lifestyle, etc. Other people influence us to be the person that we are now. This reflects our activities online as well. By examining my daily mobile routines, I have figured that I tend to open more social media channels that anything else – for example Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. I launch it mostly for entertainment and communication. As a recent immigrant (just landed almost two years ago- April 2019), I had difficulty to find people my age. Most of my friends back in my country I have met during my academic journey. I am not a social person per se and I do not usually approach a person for the first time. So, during the early months of my stay here in Canada, I usually open-up my socials to catch-up and talk to my friends back home. And as the time goes by, I go out and meet people along the way (this is way before COVID). Well, not only these I also use my phone in other way for games (i.e., Call of Duty), transportation (tracking TTC buses- I use Transit Now), and tracking my activities and diet (Samsung Health). Two of these apps are also kind-of related with social and communications as well, the main obvious one is Call-of-Duty Mobile. If you are not familiar of the game, this is a multi-player shooter game that you can team up with your friends or strangers to complete an objective. This game allows players to use their microphones and speakers to talk with your teammates during a match. In Samsung Health on the other hand, lets the users connect with their friends or strangers compete on challenges and compare stats of their fitness progress which in my opinion is a great way to communicate with people with the same interest as you.
Oh! To add furthermore to this section, I give Google Search a special mention. This is one of the apps on my phone that I could never un-install. This helps with every search or query I need. No matter what you are looking for – recipes, locations, a weird thought. It will answer you in a milli-second.
Micro-moments
Let us go back to Google Search… have you ever thought what do you usually search about?
Have you heard about the term, Micro-Moments?
During my last semester, I learned about this term that is firstly coined by Google. Basically, it is an occurrence where the user looks for information of their queries whether these are location, shopping, basic questions, etc. These are the “I want to go”, “I want to know”, “I want to buy”, and the “I want to do” moments that initiates the customers’ buying journey.
Okay, let us stop talking about the definition of the word and move forward to what are some micro-moments that we deeply identify lately these days. Well, for starters the first moment for me is “I want to breathe”. Why, you might ask? From all what happened to the world this past year and all the misfortunes, it is important for us to just pause for a moment and breathe. I like to take an hour or a half to just clear up my mind and listen or watch peaceful things on the internet through my phone or smart tv before going to work or start the class. I also do some feel-good readings about hope, serenity, and just good news to help me and my mind get that moment of calmness that we all need and aim for these days.
Another moment is “I want to explore”, this also came up during the lockdown. All of us stayed mostly at home and sometimes I know it is feeling restrictive and suffocating. So, I what I do is research about different places around the world and learn about their culture through videos and articles. In this way, you will be able to help you mind looking forward to a better future.
The Downside
Like all the things in life, everything has its downside. Being online most of time can be draining--constantly checking our phone each minute hoping for a new notification to pop out. Also, just by scrolling around social media all day, we might bump into bad news that can ruin your whole day. Oh! Do not let me start on the sudden crashes or malfunctions! Especially when you are in the middle of a game or you are anticipating the exact time of the bus arrival! It can be real frustrating for the users, especially when you are running late for work and you are highly reliant on that certain app. This frustration can also be applied to mobile games where you play or interact with other users. Another, downside of mobile is the miscommunications on social media. I have heard a lot of stories about arguments because of just a miswording or other type of unfortunate occurrence that can end relationships or hatred between people. I have lost a lot of friends and ended relationship because of this, which to think of it I sometimes can be a good thing—you know to end some “toxic” relationship that can greatly affect your mental health.
At the end of day, we just need to accept and embrace the un-ending evolvement of our world. We need adapt to these changes but also take precautions so it can help us rather than destroy us. We also should not let social media or our mobile define us. We should you this as an aid rather than the focus of our whole day. Okay, enough “lecturing for today” and let us end this with a question…
If our mobile phone can only have five apps on its system (except of the essentials to run the system of course), what are those and why?
