Are Smartphones Killing Our Conversation?

As I have stated in my previous article that innovations has changed our life. Although these innovations are amazing pieces of technology, they are beginning to have negative impacts on the way society integrates with itself. Smartphone is a great example for us to take a deeper look on that. Take a look at our everyday life. It is common to see almost every people has a smartphone on hands. And according to eMarketer in March 2010 – There are 650 million people globally who are now using their smartphones more and more for tasks such as email and social networking and it found that 70 per cent of smartphone users have accessed email and 43 per cent have accessed social networks via their devices.

 Photo from Mike Bowen in Google+

The above photo is also a common scene we can see in public transports nowadays. Everybody is buried in their phones to check email, send text messages, listen to music, surf internet etc. A small device can help you connect with the world instantly but can also make you isolate to the society at the same time if we continue down the road of smartphone addiction.

Smartphones are undoubtedly one of the best pieces of technology that have been developed over the last couple of years. Its amazing that a piece of equipment relatively small in size, can be so powerful. It not only acts as a telephone but also as a mobile internet, a games console and with the addition of an imense number of apps. To apps which you can use as a multi-functional camera, as a messager, as a GPS, as a universal translator or to check your emails on the go. Huge and different functions can be performed by smartphone because of these apps.

The smartphone, with its links to the social networking sites of today, allows you to see what friends are up to instantly. You can express your status right away, chat and catch up with your friends at any moment, check in at various different places and upload photos straight to you facebook page. Consequencely, the instant link to social world has changed our social habbit.


I've started to notice more and more the number of times you walk down the street and all you see are people, head down, smartphone in hand, playing around with it, actually I'm one of them. The instant social networking makes you check or interact at any moment. It's like a drug that if you don't check it for a long time you will feel uncomfortable and insecure because for a long being you have been used to keep up-to-dated to each others to keep yourself away from alone and isolated to the world thru smartphone. Therefore, smartphone has become one's everyday life. People gradually spend more and more time in the virtual social world in smartphone to communicate with others rather than in the real world. Here are some real cases from the internet user.

"I sat with some friends the other day and became increasingly annoyed with them because they kept their heads down and fiddled and messed about with their smartphones. It felt like they weren't even interested in chatting. I felt quite annoyed and sad afterwards. Granted my conversational skills can sometimes be a tad dreary but I would expect some common decency. Are smartphones killing conversation?"

created by survey_says on 22/08/2011

"if i went out with a group of friends i would find it very rude for them all to be sat there on there phones, if i am with someone i never get my phone out as its rude. i recently went out with my inlaws :/ there was me my other half, my mother in law, father in law, 2 brother in laws and my sister in law after the waitress had took our order and we were all waiting for our meals to be prepared literally everyone around the table was sat there on there phones, it was totally silent. i was really quite bemused. i found it really rude and was quite uncomfortable, i got up and went to the toilet and came back and i dont even think one of them realised i had even left the table! i just felt like screaming to them will you put your bloody phones away! if it was my family and someone got there phone out it would be put your phone away its bad manners."

Opinion by charlied-w, Posted on 22/08/2011

From the above cases, we could see how smartphone kills our conversation now. People now used to use smartphone to play games or apps to kill time and browse Facebook or text message to catch up with friends. But sometimes we do it while we are in a friend or family gathering. Isn't it wry? We want to stay in touch with friends thru online social tools but at the same time neglecting them in the real world. This is totally an unhealthy phenomenon. If it keeps going, our society so as our relationship would gradually become isolated.

Smartphones are great pieces of technology, but in certain situations people should make a concious effort to turn the phone off and talk to one another. If we don't, we run the risk of becoming a very introverted society where conversation becomes less and less of a common occurance. The social impact of the smartphone can be profound and over our imagination.

Here's a funny commercial from Window Phone 7 make a dig of the present smartphone phenonmenon. Enjoy! :D