My life without a smartphone is getting harder and harder

An interesting perspective. So many things we do now is smartphone required and we rarely think about it if we have one. But what about those that don’t?

@patrickrhone My youngest brother is almost certainly “on the Autism spectrum,” and socially vulnerable to manipulation. But he’s a professional violinist, and the time came this Fall when a smart phone became the cheapest way to let him handle his own professional email traffic.

@patrickrhone I see these conundrums playing out among the rural, senior population I work with. What worries me is that more and more agencies are using virtual and smartphone apps to interact with a population on fixed incomes who still rely on snail mail and landlines. They can’t afford their medications; they sure aren’t going to be able to buy all the tech goodies you need to support a $martphone. A lot of people have to rely on younger relatives to navigate healthcare and social services and shopping and whatnot, and that’s a lot to ask… and sadly, some folks take advantage of this. People who could manage their own affairs without apps increasingly need to depend on others because now so much requires one to interact via apps. Frustrating. Anyway, I apologize for the length of this reply… but it really concerns me.

@patrickrhone in Sweden almost impossible to work, study and even beeing retired without mobile phone. Nowadays almost impossible to travel without covidpassport in the phone

@patrickrhone I’ve often been tempted to try living without a phone for a while to see if one can make it through life. I suspect it would be incredibly hard. That was an interesting read.

@Alligator Agreed.

@parvus The fact that it is required for so much these days and how that has potential to leave many out was certainly a big takeaway from the article for me. We need to do a better job as societies of making sure accommodations are considered for those without.

@annahavron The COVID testing sites I’ve gone to completely rely on having a smart phone. The entire process is driven by that fact. The order and take at home ones rely on having a device with a web cam. All rely on having an internet connection, email address, etc.

How many people in underserved communities, the elderly, etc. are left out or getting a lesser experience because of these requirements?

We as a society need to design for less privilege, not more.

@ReaderJohn Makes sense.

@alanralph What we believe in. (Though, my iPhone SE got replaced with an iPhone 12 mini last year)

@JMaxB My Dad did not have one until last year when he “inherited” my wife’s iPhone SE.

It was becoming increasingly difficult for him not to have one.

@timapple I think for many of us, our relationship with our smart phones is complicated and only becoming more so, not less.

@patrickrhone ?? for the Covid testing….?! That is absurd! I know families that maybe have ONE smartphone between them! That makes no sense at all. Your last sentence, right there: I could not agree more.

@annahavron @patrickrhone edited to add: I mean, your last sentence about the importance of designing for LESS privilege. I wish that was the norm.

@alanralph The iPhone 12 mini is fantastic. Same size as the SE with the power of the 12 and the camera is <chef’s kiss>.

@annahavron Yep. At the testing center they give you the kit, direct you to a table, you use your phone camera to scan a QR code or navigate to URL manually, and follow the onscreen instructions, using the phone throughout the process to scan and upload insurance card, scan the barcode on the text kit, etc.

Seriously, you need a smartphone for the entire process — everything.

Thanks for the agreement on the designing for less privilege.

@patrickrhone at our local testing site, you do not need a smartphone, but you do have to have prebooked both your testing appointment and requested your lab test, each via a separate website. The lab test site requires a log in via email address and a password. While I was waiting in line the other day, I watched as the staff very patiently walked lots of folks through that entire process, including multiple seniors, and it was challenging for a lot of them. That said, I’m not sure how we design a process that has to operate
on the scale and scope we need this one to, and have it not be a pain or hard to access for significant numbers of folks. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be thinking about these sorts of accessibility and privilege issues, but tbh, the smartphone route seems to be among one of the better options,’given that more people seem more likely to have a phone and cell service than home internet etc. I don’t know—it’s super complicated for sure.

@JMaxB Your example of trains is great. I can’t help but notice that these changes – a decent passenger train network collapses so we can sell individual cars; a landline phone system and postal system to individual smartphones and individual internet access – all of these things also transfer an immense cost and labor burden once shared by the community to, well, individuals. Now, to participate in the economy and in the public square, you have to own and maintain a car when in the past you could catch a train; you have to own an expensive pocket mini-computer instead of having access to simpler communications systems which even people without a lot of money or tech savvy could use. In order to participate in society, people now have to have the private wealth to own and maintain cars and smartphones. We are shifting so much of the expense and labor of transportation and communication, things that used to be seen as a common good, onto the individual. And that means so. many. individuals. are locked out. And…. my sermon is over for the moment. :-D Clearly this topic hits a nerve for me.

@patrickrhone go Jen!
The airline attendant’s mindless QR-worship made me giggle… it just contains a url which they could have printed underneath right

@warner @patrickrhone yes why unless an arty reason are there not the URLs next to the QR code. Often it’s quicker to type the URL than the QR dance too - nice story was thinking about this the other day re recent interactions with cashless venues and app ordering this is mainly poor mismatch design and excluding participation

@adamprocter I think most URLs peolpe take the effort to print probably contain tracking info, so they’d be too long.
But I generate mine with Cutt.ly where you get a short URL too (ceru.li/beach-poster) for our Brits by the Beach poster!

However, if we can prove that they do just encode a URL string in a machine-readable visual way - and nothing else (though even I sometimes wonder with 3rd party tools - people will always assume there’s some other obscure tech magic going on which makes them feel the venue is more resourced: there’s an element of Mechanical Turk about it.