Smartphones Are Good

The history of communication is mankind's search for ways to improve upon shouting.

When running with a message, to convey it in spoken form, it is safer to do it oneself. Sending anyone else is unreliable, as the game of Chinese whispers demonstrates. So another requirement for efficient communication is a system of writing.

Messages carved on stone pillars communicate very well across time, down through the centuries, but they are an inefficient method of communicating across space. The message reads only within reading range; its recipients must travel to receive it.

There are forms of long-distance communication not based on words. The smoke signals used by American Indians (above all perhaps in westerns) are of this kind. So are bonfires lit in succession on a line of hilltops. But such devices are only capable of conveying very limited pre-arranged signals, such as 'danger' or 'victory'.

There is great advantage to a ruler who can send or receive a message quicker than his rivals.

Until recent centuries, the only way to increase the speed of communication has been to improve the speed of the messenger. This depends on good roads, fast riders and well provisioned staging posts at which fresh men and horses are always available. The network of Roman roads makes communication steady and reliable, but it is unlikely that it is faster than the delivery system perfected by the Persians

The birth of smartphone revolutionize the way we communicate, play, think, surf the internet and more. Never before a single device has the capability to replace so many other items.

Toys R Us declared bankruptcy Monday, but the batteries powering this bunny went dead a long time ago.

While there are a lot of factors at "play," a big part of the issue is that the Batmobiles and Barbie dolls have been gathering dust in the rec room as children's faces are lit by glowing apps and bleeping video games.

Now when you type into Google, "My kid is addicted to..." the top suggested word to fill in the blank is "Minecraft," followed by sugar, then Xbox, then "Roblox," another block-building game. That's right, Minecraft is more addictive than sugar, according to what people are anxiously typing into Google.

Jaila Gladden was kidnapped at knife point outside a grocery store in Carrollton by a man who intended to take her to Atlanta in her own car, but did not know how to get there, she told Buzzfeed News.

Her quick thinking in getting Timothy Wilson, the offender, to let her use her cell phone to give him directions ended up helping her notify police of her ordeal.

“It was the most logical thing to do,” she told Buzzfeed.

After kidnapping Gladden, Wilson took her behind an abandoned church and raped her. He then told her he planned to rob a gas station before driving them both to Michigan.

But he needed help with directions, and Gladden said she could only guide him if she could Google directions on her phone. While simultaneously giving Wilson directions, Gladden texted her location to her boyfriend, Tamir Bryant.

Smartphones have made it easier to communicate. In the past, if you wanted to get a message to someone who was too far away to hear your voice, you would have to, for example use smoke signals or have a horse deliver the message to them. [1]

The history of communication is mankind's search for ways to improve upon shouting.

When running with a message, to convey it in spoken form, it is safer to do it oneself. Sending anyone else is unreliable, as the game of Chinese whispers demonstrates. So another requirement for efficient communication is a system of writing.

Messages carved on stone pillars communicate very well across time, down through the centuries, but they are an inefficient method of communicating across space. The message reads only within reading range; its recipients must travel to receive it.

There are forms of long-distance communication not based on words. The smoke signals used by American Indians (above all perhaps in westerns) are of this kind. So are bonfires lit in succession on a line of hilltops. But such devices are only capable of conveying very limited pre-arranged signals, such as 'danger' or 'victory'.

There is great advantage to a ruler who can send or receive a message quicker than his rivals.

Until recent centuries, the only way to increase the speed of communication has been to improve the speed of the messenger. This depends on good roads, fast riders and well provisioned staging posts at which fresh men and horses are always available. The network of Roman roads makes communication steady and reliable, but it is unlikely that it is faster than the delivery system perfected by the Persians

Smartphones have made communication easier since you can now simply call their number or send a text message, both of which are much faster and much easier than relying on a messenger or on smoke\

The birth of smartphone revolutionize the way we communicate, play, think, surf the internet and more. Never before a single device has the capability to replace so many other items.

Thanks to smartphones, parents also no longer need to spend money on useless "toys" for their children, and because of this, stores like Toys R Us are closing down so that other better stores can take their place. [3]

Toys R Us declared bankruptcy Monday, but the batteries powering this bunny went dead a long time ago.

While there are a lot of factors at "play," a big part of the issue is that the Batmobiles and Barbie dolls have been gathering dust in the rec room as children's faces are lit by glowing apps and bleeping video games.

Now when you type into Google, "My kid is addicted to..." the top suggested word to fill in the blank is "Minecraft," followed by sugar, then Xbox, then "Roblox," another block-building game. That's right, Minecraft is more addictive than sugar, according to what people are anxiously typing into Google.

She knows that they're not equivalent and playing with virtual worlds can't substitute for the real thing.
"You can build the most beautiful 3-D world, but nothing is going to replace the fine motor or social skills by picking up two blocks and stacking them on top of each other," said Zander.

Smartphones can save lives. Just the other day, a woman named Jaila Gladden outsmarted her kidnapper using a smartphone. The kidnapper did not seem to fully understand how smartphones work and did not seem to be aware that smartphones could be used against him, which shows how important it is to have a basic understanding of smartphones. [4]

There are many other ways for communicating with someone, homephone, cellphone, PC, and more.

All of these which you could use messenger apps.

simply using quotes as your arguments is not very good, your literally only writing two sentences.

This isn't true, it clearly said "MINECRAFT", XBOX, AND ROBLOX, all of those being computer games, and console games.

In this case the man is just stupid.

He needed help with directions, and GPS on the modern car can do that.

The only positive your showing is that it has maps

this ONE special case is not enough to prove it.

VOTERS: Notice I said special, this implies that its probably the only of it's kind. So someone could use this source: newday.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/30/boy-uses-gospel-music-to-escape-kidnapper/

and say every kidnapper hates repeating gospel music.

smartphone bans have increased test scores by 6%, but those struggling academically were boosted by 14%!

you shouldn’t even buy a smartphone in the first place. Even though it can be accessed from practically anywhere in the world, it causes smartphone addiction. Smartphone addiction can cause both social and psychological problems. It typically is found in those in adolescence, they claim that they couldn’t live without smartphones.

Home phones aren't as versatile as a smartphone, though. For example, this Uniden Slim1100 Slimline phone https://i.imgur.com/cZhEbCF.png can literally only send/receive calls/messages, and can't really do much else. It has no calculator app. No web browser app. No radio app. [1] It also has to remain at home (hence the name "home phone") whereas a smartphone can be taken with you, be used on the go, and is far more versatile and cheaper, like this Samsung Galaxy S3 https://i.imgur.com/UBnDjji.png which can do more things and costs less money. [2]

Cellphones aren't as versatile as modern smartphones either. [3]

A smartphone is a cellphone with advanced features, so the two terms aren't interchangeable, even if people sometimes use them that way. Technically, a smartphone is a cellphone, but a cellphone is not smart.

Smartphones Are Tiny Computers

Think of a smartphone as a miniature computer that can place and receive calls. Most smartphones connect to a virtual store with thousands of apps that turn the phone into something much smarter than a regular cellphone.

Smartphone apps include games, image editors, navigation maps, budgeting apps, word processors, and multiple web browser options. Some phones provide you with a built-in virtual assistant, such as Apple iPhone's Siri, that responds to your verbal instructions.

Cellphones place and receive voice calls and send text messages. Smartphones do those things and much, much more.

PCs are as versatile as smartphones, but smartphones have the advantage of being small and easy to fit in your pocket, whereas desktop computers have to be plugged in and assembled with a mouse, keyboard, hard drive, power cables, and other components, which is not required with a smartphone. Laptops are usually smaller than PCs, but, again, those usually have to be in a backpack or other container, and can't simply fit in your pocket or be used with one hand.

Home phones can't use messenger apps.

Cell phones can use messenger apps, but those often don't have dedicated keyboards for typing. So, for instance if you wanted to send a simple "Hello" text message to someone, you would have to type 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6 on the keypad. [4] That's quite a lot of numbers that you have to press, just for one word! With a smartphone, or any phone with a dedicated keyboard, you can type much faster and easier.

In mobile phones the letters on the keys are used for text entry tasks such as text messaging, entering names in the phone book, and browsing the web. To compensate for the smaller number of keys, phones used multi-tap and later predictive text processing to speed up the process. Touch-screen phones have made this method obsolete, as they can simulate as many buttons as necessary for full text entry.

I prefer quality over quantity. In other words, if I can make a strong compelling argument within only a few short sentences, it's easier than writing long complex paragraphs that are dozens of sentences long. Plus, I am limited to 10,000 characters for this debate, so I couldn't write much longer things anyways even if I wanted to.

Minecraft and Roblox were ported to multiple different consoles, including smartphones. [5] Roblox has also been available on mobile devices for years now. [6]

Yeah, he was, and she exploited his stupidity with a smartphone, proving that smartphones can save lives.

We don't know if the car was a modern one with a GPS. It could have been one that existed for years or decades, sometime before GPS's became a common thing in cars.

Yeah, it has maps, alerts, calculator, web browser, radio, notepad, Youtube, WhatsApp, social media, games, movies, anime, gmail, camera, flashlight, clock, calendar, alarm, weather forecast, news, broadcasts, video chat, music, siri, voice recording, and so much more, all accessible within my pocket whenever I need. 

In the event of an emergency, businesses need a quick and reliable way to notify their people and keep them safe. Whether your workers are disconnected from a physical office or you need to keep them informed during a critical incident, smartphones can help ensure employee safety.

Workers are rarely away from their phones, which transforms an everyday device into a life-saving tool. Every business could benefit from adopting an emergency notification system, regardless of whether their employees are in the office or out in the field.

Smartphone bans don't increase test scores. Studying does. Practicing does. Reviewing and remembering the course material does.

This isn't necessarily the smartphone's fault. It's the fault of the person getting addicted to it in the first place. You can own a smartphone and still train and discipline yourself to not get so addicted to it to the point where you're checking it every 20 minutes. Smartphones require discipline. Without that self-discipline, you can become addicted to smartphones, as well as a whole lot of other things. For example, if you're addicted to Facebook, you can try to challenge yourself to go 1 day without any Facebook. Then, if you want, you can increase the challenge and try to go 2 days, or 5, or 10, and so on. Then you wouldn't really be as addicted to it as you were, and it would be easy for you to focus on other more important things, since you have trained yourself to not be constantly checking that phone every 20 minutes. [8]

As my sources said, calling is now obsolete, because it came in 11th place for the most used things.

You use the "everything at your fingertips" cliché

It teaches people to become some lazy being

to check their snapchat or whatnot. It teaches people to become addicted to that feeling, and it easily wastes your time.

Don't video games waste your time anyway? Games are not productive

and your whole argument is that phones are more convenient therefore more productive.

That's an ad for alert media, which is totally biased.

You completely ignored the statistic, smartphone bans do increase the test scores

Yeah you can train yourself to get out of the addiction, but the problem is that your in it the first place, and it's pretty hard. It's like saying "Tobacco is good because I can get out of the addiction by training myself".

It's definitley the tobacco's fault of addiction. Smartphones cause addiction, just like tobacco.

First of all, the definition of obsolete is "no longer produced or used". [1] Many people still use their phones to make calls, even if they don't do it often, so it can't be "now obsolete".

Second of all, since when it become a requirement for something to come in 10th place or better for it to not be obsolete? I don't see Snapchat, Instagram, Google, Calender, Clock, or Calculator in that top 10, so does that mean those are obsolete too, since none of them made it into some random top 10 list?

It's not a cliché, it's a fact. Most of the basic things that we need to know today can be looked up. We have so much easy access to such massive information at our fingertips. We just type in it into our browser search engine and press enter or click the search button to look it up, and then we can learn it and know it.

Saying that inventions like the smartphone teach people to become lazy is a bad excuse for why we shouldn't invent and utilize new things.

their time wasted, and can find ways to break that addiction by training themselves to avoid craving so much social media. [2]

Smartphones and social media apps aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so it is up to us as the users to decide how much of our time we want to dedicate to them. Unless the advertisement-based profit model changes, companies like Facebook will continue to do everything they can to keep your eyes glued to the screen as often as possible. And by using algorithms to leverage our dopamine-driven reward circuitry, they stack the cards—and our brains—against us. But if you want to spend less time on your phone, there are a variety strategies to achieve success. Doing things like disabling your notifications for social media apps and keeping your display in black and white will reduce your phone’s ability to grab and hold your attention. Above all, mindful use of the technology is the best tool you have. So the next time you pick up your phone to check Facebook, you might ask yourself, “Is this really worth my time?”

Addictions start with the user. Not the drugs. Not the substances. Not the smartphone. Not the social media. It first starts with the user. Before any addiction can begin, a user must first experiment with the substance or piece of technology in order to get that first rush of dopamine. Then, instead of realizing that they are getting addicted and stopping early before it gets any worse, they start craving more and more, and that's how an addiction starts. [3]

Just like a gambling or substance addiction, social media addiction involves broken reward pathways in our brains. Social media provides immediate rewards — in the form of attention from your network — for minimal effort through a quick thumb tap. Therefore, the brain rewires itself, making you desire likes, retweets, emoji applause and so on.

Eventually, your body builds up tolerance to whatever it is you're addicted to, so you have to get more and more of it to get the same effect. After that, it just gets harder and harder to break the addiction since you're so used to it. [4]

Actually, there are benefits to playing video games. [5] The only problem is when you're playing too much of it.

No, my argument is that phones are more convenient AND they help you be more productive. In the past, it was harder to deliver messages, since you had to always physically travel to get the message to them, but with a smartphone, you can send messages across the world within seconds, allow you to be more productive since you don't need to travel so much.

What part of it is biased? The part where just about every business can benefit from smartphones? The part where you can signal for help with a smartphone? The part where smartphones allow you to send messages within seconds? The part where having an alert system in your smartphone can come in handy? Yeah, those are just basic facts. Nothing biased about that.

What exactly were they trying to advertise and sell? The closest thing to advertising that they did was talk about one of the many apps that you could use for alerts and use that as an example, and even then, they weren't trying to sell anything since that app is free. Using something as an example isn't the same as advertising.

Even if this were true, it still would have been better for students to simply train themselves to stop checking their social media constantly, rather than banning all the smartphones because some guy depended on one to get his fix of dopamine. In fact, I would say that these people should do what I did and delete all forms of social media since it's just unhealthy, addicting, and distracting.

Imagine going out to dinner with your family, and half of them were just checking their social media instead of interacting. That's what many families are actually doing nowadays when they go out to eat. The problem lies in the people. Not the devices. The people can't seem to learn to practice staying off of social media, like me. I'm glad I got rid of all my social media, because it was just doing more harm than good. That allows me to make the best of my smartphone without all of the distractions.

Except tobacco is never good for you no matter what. Tobacco goes into your lungs from smoking, and causes permanent damage to your internal organs. [6] Social media does not. With a tobacco addiction, even when you do get out of the addiction, you still have to deal with the permanent damage that was done to your body and blood, whereas with a smartphone addiction, when you get out of it, you can feel much better and recover fully since you are no longer distracted by the social media, and no permanent damage was done to your organs in the same way tobacco does.

Even if you were to let's say ban all tobacco and all smartphones in the world, people would still simply find something else to get addicted to, and I learned this the hard way. I remember training myself to give up on one thing, while then becoming addicted to something else. I had to keep training and disciplining myself to stop these addictions.

It's the low willpower, lack of self-control, and lack of discipline of these people that causes their addictions, not the substances or electronics. The substances and smartphones are just the things that they're getting addicted to, in this case. They get their first burst of instant-gratification from the drug or the electronic device, and they automatically seek out more of it, 'cause they don't know any better than to stop seeking instant-gratification all the time, which leads to their addictions. [7]

Your disregard, and bad critics are insulting to me.

Yeah, that's an argument for internet not smartphones

when compared, computers are better than smartphones.

They do teach people to become lazy, by making everything available at their fingertips.

The smartphone is NOW BEEN PROVEN by your source that it uses broken reward pathways, to make you addicted.

This ties with my addiction. You play too much because you're addicted

Unless you're addicted to the calculator, it ain't gonna help your productivity.

It becomes biased when a company is saying it as a bait for you trying to use it's products.

it's stopping face-to-face interaction

if it does bad things to humans, it's bad.

Why do you need to spend your time fixing you from your phone addiction in the first place?

saying there is another thing that will get us addicted, doesn't clear smartphones.

I would say that it's an argument for both. Smartphones can connect to the internet, which allows us to have access to tons of information online from within our pockets.

Whether or not computers are better than smartphones is up for an entirely different debate. This debate is simply on whether or not "Smartphones Are Good". If you compare the two, I would say that they both have various advantages and disadvantages and that it boils down to personal preference.

For example, smartphones have the advantage of being able to be carried around in your pocket so you can pull it out and have it ready within seconds, unlike a computer which needs to be properly assembled with things like a mouse, keyboard, and power cables, and also requires you to wait longer to boot it up while it loads.

Computers on the other hand, have the advantage of usually having a much bigger screen, being able to use a physical keyboard and mouse, being able to connect to printers, being able to connect USB and ethernet cables, and can usually hold hundreds of gigabytes worth of data, whereas a smartphone has to be charged once in a while, can't really hold as much data without some kind of external storage like an SD card, and can be physically connected to less things. Things like gaming and drawing are also easier on a computer than they are on a smartphone, since with a smartphone, you usually operate the touch-screen keyboard with just your thumbs, whereas with a computer, you can use just about all of your fingers.

I use both smartphones and computers. If you need something to access the internet on the go, you use a smartphone. If you need to do more complex advanced things, you use a computer, so they're both pretty good.

You keep incorrectly associating making certain tasks easier in creative and effective ways with teaching people to be lazy. We have been inventing things, and utilizing things that already exist, to make tasks easier for centuries, and even animals do it too. For example, crows have been known to use very basic stuff like twigs and pebbles to make it easier to obtain food in certain situations. [1] Does this make the crow lazy? No. It makes the crow more productive, since it can get food easier and feed it's other family and friends of crows more easily.

Even if this did somehow make the crow lazy, do you think the crow itself is gonna care? No. It just cares about getting it's food, and it will use whatever is available to it to make that task easier if it can. So while you're struggling unnecessarily like crazy to get food instead of being smart and trying to figure out ways to make the task easier with what you're allowed to use, the crow is actually using it's brain to think for itself, which pays off in the long run.

Have you every heard of the North Sentimental Islands? It's an island located somewhere near India, and it is home to a tribe who completely isolate themselves from the rest of the world. They're so isolated that, not only do they lack any kind of immunity to any modern-day disease, but also can't do basic things like make their own fire, so they have to rely on lightning striking something to get fire, and don't know how to do basic things like farm. [2] I supposed they knew better than to rely on any modern things like that and be lazy, right? Except they're not advanced like we are, and are vulnerable to anybody who wanted to invade them and take over the island.

Without inventions like the phone as well as our creativity, or with your dangerous mentality that such great inventions only make people lazy, we could have ended up just like them.

That's why you need to stay off of social media as much as you can so that you don't become addicted in the first place. Too much of a good thing is usually a bad thing, and that holds true for smartphones. Smartphones are very valuable tools, but if you depend on it too much to get that rush of dopamine with every Like/Thumbs-Up on Facebook or whatever, then it leads to the addiction. This is, again, not the smartphone's fault. It's the fault of you depending on social media for that dopamine rush, on the smartphone. To solve this, you must teach, train, and discipline yourself to not always expect instant gratification and instead be willing to delay that gratification.

I did this, and this is why I don't use stuff like Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook, because I know that those things are unhealthy when you become depend on them for the dopamine. It's unhealthy to find gratification within these things and/or base your worth on how many subscribers or followers you have. When you do, you end up like someone like Jessy Taylor, an Instagram model who lost her Instagram account and went on Youtube to cry about it. [3] This is the kind of thing that happens when you take social media too far. Don't do it. This other Youtuber named Repzion makes that perfectly clear. [4] He also made another great video about how valuable time is and how you can't waste it on social media [5] and Prince Ea, another Youtuber, talked about this too, about how people focus so much on the social media on their smartphones instead if building up the discipline to not do that. [6] Smartphones can play a role in addiction due to social media, but they ultimately aren't the thing to blame. It's just an innocent piece of technology at the end of the day. It doesn't come to life and say to itself "hmm let me make my owner addicted to me hahahaha".

Addiction starts with you, and can only end with you.

If you're working as a cashier at the cash register in the grocery store and you have like a dozen people waiting in line to purchase their stuff, then that's a lot of different prices for different goods for different people that you have to calculate.

You can choose to sit there with a pencil and paper, manually writing down the prices of each item that the person at the front of the line wants to purchase, then manually add up the numbers in your head and write them down to slowly calculate the price by counting them on your fingers, and then also write down that sum and subtract it from the cash that they give you to calculate their change, the way that you learned it all back in elementary school, all while you have at least 11 more people behind them getting pissed off because you're taking too long just to calculate 1 person's prices, and then being less inclined to come back to that store again to purchase your goods because you're so slow due to your low productivity without the usage of a calculator...

or

you can just run all the stuff they want to buy through the machine, have calculating machine calculate all of the prices within seconds, and get through all those people quickly to drastically increase your productivity and make them more inclined to come back again and again

and that's just 1 example of how things like these do in fact "help your productivity."

Again, which product exactly are they trying to get you to purchase, and how exactly are they trying to "bait" people?

People choose to stop face-to-face interaction in favor of their smartphones, not the other way around.

Except they do not do bad things to humans. Humans use them to bad things to themselves, which is different. They use them to get their dopamine rush to get addicted instead of disciplining themselves to use it more properly and responsibly.

So you can make proper use of it, as well as it's useful features, in a more responsible way, as opposed to using it only for dopamine rushes on social media. That's why.

The point in me saying this was that people are better off training themselves to avoid instant-gratification from a phone as opposed to banning it outright. These bans should be a last resort.

Also, stop with the damn "thanks for conceding" nonsense! It's childish. Me defending smartphones, refuting your arguments, and backing it up with various sources is by no means a "concession".