📱60% of the world now uses smartphones
Seagnal #04 - Weekly Insights to rise above the sea of noise.
📊 Trend - Smartphone uptake and digital inclusion.
During my travels across Southeast Asia this year, one of the things that stood out was the prevalence of smartphones. Whether on public transport or walking past rustic local shops, the distinctive scrolling gestures and the familiar sound effects of mobile games caught my attention. With a staggering 60% of the world population now using smartphones, the omnipresence of these devices in our lives is worth reflecting on.
Number of estimated smartphone users by year and forecast, data source.
Whereas previously phones mainly enabled one-to-one communications, smartphones are now connecting users to the internet, unlocking one-to-many connections with minimal hardware and cost. This paradigm shift, from communication tools to platforms for internet access and applications, has economical and societal impacts.
This transformation is noticeable in the everyday lives of people around the world. For instance, in India, smartphones have simplified daily transactions to a remarkable degree. I witnessed pedestrians buying bananas from 'fruit carts' stationed along most sidewalks, using their smartphones to scan a QR code for payment.
Beyond transactions, mobile education is another example of a transformative free service built on the smartphone infrastructure. Duolingo, a gamified app with over 500 million users—or about 1 in 10 smartphone owners—empowers individuals in developing countries to learn English and other languages, enabling global opportunities and cross-cultural communication.
As we marvel at the doors opened by mobile device technology, we must also confront the challenges that accompany its widespread adoption. Concerns about data privacy are rising, with users often unaware of how much personal information they share online.
The spread of misinformation and targeted propaganda can also be facilitated by smartphones, allowing for more personalized and effective means of influencing public opinion. The controversy surrounding Cambridge Analytica, which used data mined from up to 87 million of Facebook profiles, without consent, to target political advertising, is a stark reminder of potential misuse (even though it was before wide smartphone adoption).
The compact size and light weight of these pocket computers also mean we carry them everywhere, enhancing our connectivity. Now, it's not just about receiving an SMS from a friend; it's about being continuously updated with the lives of people we haven't seen in a decade through photos and online feeds. Smartphones have also become powerful marketing tools, exploiting addictive mechanisms to capture our attention, raising concerns on addiction and the impact on our mental health.
The global increase in smartphone users opens up opportunities for advancing digital services, potentially reducing inequalities, and bettering our connectivity. Yet, it also brings to light significant challenges regarding data privacy, and manipulation. How can we leverage this incredible platform for the best and limit the negative side-effects?
💡 Concept - Irrational actors
In the wake of Daniel Kahneman's passing—a distinguished Israeli-American author, psychologist, and economist—I am reminded of his profound curiosity and the numerous experiments he conducted to demonstrate that humans are not rational actors. Our decision-making process is heavily influenced by heuristics and biases, many of which he describes in his best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow. One of my favorite experiments was based on the following question:
“Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations […] we introduced large groups of people to Linda and asked them this simple question: Which alternative is more probable ?
Linda is a bank teller.
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement” [1]
A staggering 85% to 90% of undergraduates incorrectly chose option 2, which is a logical fallacy. Option 1 inherently includes option 2: if Linda is both a bank teller and an activist, she is also by default a bank teller; however, the reverse may not necessarily be true.
This experiment demonstrates our tendency to leap to conclusions based on narrative coherence rather than logical probability, highlighting the impact of a cognitive bias on our reasoning. Even doctoral students, when presented with a more complex variation of this question, didn't fare significantly better in avoiding this common cognitive mistake.
🔗 - Check these out
- TED talk by Guatemalan Duolingo CEO, Luis Von Anh, on mobile learning.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, for insights into how we make decisions.
References: [1] Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman