Discussing smartphone use with various people recently, I quickly come back to the same question - what do you need it for? This is not a masked way of saying they don’t need a smartphone, but a genuine question. I’m personally happy to accept that people use smartphones for a variety of reasons, from professional work, to having to pay for parking, and from medical technology to not having access to laptops or computers.
So maybe a stepping stone to better co-design of smartphone use is to be more open about what we need to use our phones for, and why we carry them around with us. This post, then, is a bit of an experiment to start surfacing thoughts. The question is applicable to all devices, but I figure a) better to start somewhere specific, and b) smartphones are a particularly “invasive” device. So…
Which functions on your smartphone do you feel you NEED it for, and why?
To start, I’d say there are some things I like to have my phone on me for - camera, photo editing, note-taking. But the things I probably need it for on the go are:
- Necessary contact from family and friends via phone call, text and (specific) group chats
- Parking apps, as paying by machine often isn’t available here
- Finding directions in strange places
- Access to passwords and one-time codes
- Transferring emergency funds to kids’ bank cards
- Checking my calendar
I guess there will be a lot of overlap, but that’s good to know. And it would also be interesting to know what less common cases exist: I think a mindful tech movement risks coming from a privileged position, and so awareness of these less common needs is all an essential part of the discussion.
There are no right or wrong answers here, just the opportunity to open up and find out from others :)
Sure, you don’t need apps, but they can save you hours of waiting if you can change your plans quickly, for example when a train is delayed or cancelled and you need to find other alternatives.
Yeah I agree, I’ll easily file public transportation apps as a need. During delays it can be vital. And have fun when you find yourself in an area new to you late at night after being out with friends and you don’t even know where the closest bus stop/train or subway station is, without a way to look it up on the phone. You definitely need an app to look that up and to plan your route home.
I used the proprietary apps for public transport back in my pre-Google boycott days and indeed they were quite useful for last minute changes on unfamiliar routes. Then public transport started blocking Tor which broke their app. But I eventually realised public transport is not the way forward anyway.
I switched to a bicycle (more independance and autonomy, better for the environment, better for health [not just exercise but less viral exposure], much more privacy, and cheaper). So if your travel is in cycling range or you can make it so, it makes more sense to ditch public transport entirely.
Public transport is getting increasingly more privacy hostile. More and more networks refusing cash payments, transitions to SMS tickets, more surveillance & facial recognition, more tracking, and despite all that privacy compromise in the end you are still less safe than cycling due to viruses and the unavoidable possibility of attacks (though that’s city-dependant to some extent… some cities are rough cycling).
Cycling is great and I wish I could make it an option, but where I live commute times to most work places are about 1h using public transport. Biking is out of the question unless you have time to sit on a bike for a couple of hours every day. To me even 1h commutes are too much but I have no choice unless I want to pay at least double in rent, which in turn takes away a big part of my freedom.