Tech Talks Today
Your 21st Century Life is Made Out of Apps
Say Hello to Man’s Best Friend, the Smartphone
Just a second, I need to check my phone and see what apps I have installed and I regularly use. To be honest, I sometimes forget what I regularly use or have installed. Smartphone usage and the much needed, empowering apps are already part of your second nature. Kind of like eating or sleeping, sometimes, or most of the times, in some cases, you don’t even realize that you’re using it. God forbid you forget your phone at home when you leave for work, as you will feel like you’ve ruined your entire day.
Hmmm, ok, I’ve just had a look. What I can say for sure is that I mostly have an application installed for everything. I do not use every single app every single day, but that doesn’t mean i should have it uninstalled. For example, I use the F1 TV app whenever I want to watch a race on the go, or Uber, whenever I need to get somewhere and I don’t have my car. Maybe Waze from time to time when I need to go to a new place. You get the idea.
I think the rest are pretty obvious and, to me, only emphasizes the use of a mobile device for communication purposes. WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger are top contenders for me, and I use them daily to talk to people or send photos and documents.
Life’s been so much easier since more accessible data plans have been made available for all the users in the world. You can do so much more than with the classical SMS. You can really feel more connected, and it just makes life much easier and accessible.
Staying connected is important (TM).
Besides the usual Gmail and Outlook clients which are a must for me, I also use the Feedly app to monitor various blogging feeds and read news and topics that I am interested in.
Let’s see, what else? Google Calendar and Google Keep are a must if you want to keep yourself organized and like to plan ahead. It is so handy to write down notes and schedule events or reminders on your phone. You don’t have to carry an agenda with you, and, in essence, you are saving paper and trees. It is a bit of a nuanced view, I know, but it is what it is.
Probably most important of all are the apps I couldn’t really live without. I am not addicted to them, but I actually need them to stay secure and have some work done. I am talking about the ever important 2FA authenticator apps. Simple word of advice, use them and always try to be as safe as you can.
On the social side I usually stay on the down low. I use Instagram to follow some people I like, and that’s about it. Facebook is probably one of the least used apps on my phone. As for Twitter, I read what some people have to say every now and then. What else, hmmm, ah yes, YouTube. I usually consume YouTube on PC, don’t really like to watch videos on the phone. I know I am not on the trend, but what can you do? Personal preference beats social preference.
In the grand scheme of things, that is about it. All the rest of the apps I have installed are tools. Online shops, banking apps, weather apps, PDF readers, file explorers, Bitwarden, QR code scanners, GPay, Google Maps and so on, are instruments that you need in a modern world. Of course you could manage without them, but having them at your fingertips stands to prove the power of progress.
In a way, the smartphone is man’s best friend. It’s okay, your dog just chewed your favorite shoes. :) You can apologize later.
The truth is, we have become so accustomed to it in the last decade that it is hard to imagine, both a life without it and both the life with it. It is great that it has a large number of uses, but bad that it can cause so much addiction.
I mean, I was watching the most recent F1 race and, everybody in the stands had their phone up to record all the cars at the start of the race, literally everybody.
I mean, I get it, you want to have a memory of something spectacular, but, at the same time, it kind of feels like you’re missing the “live” moment just to grab a short clip. You can also see that on YouTube, recorded by professionals, if you really want to remember it.
There are a lot of cases when we do that and, instead of living that moment at 100%, we only experiences it in glimpses, hoping that we can relive it the next time we watch the ever important recorded clip. It is a bit sad, but only because it is true.
So, use the full potential of modern technology, but don’t forget to live in the moment.
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