They’re not just Apps, they’re our way of life

There’s a photo circulating on the internet from the Blackmass movie premiere of an old woman standing without a cellphone enjoying the red-carpet event with a sea of people around her glued to their phone - relegated to enjoying the event on a small screen as they try to capture the memory of it. The event featured movie stars Johnny Depp and Dakota Johnson - so it’s understandable why people were so eager to make sure they captured the moment. The reason this photo was circulating on blog posts and social media platforms was because of the shear look of bliss on the woman’s face as she simply enjoyed the moment in real time. If you look at the demographics of people around her, it would be interesting to delve into how different people were utilizing their phones. I’m sure the older generation were simply capturing pictures, while the younger generations may have been posting images directly to social media or even live streaming the event for their followers to see. What’s consistent about all phone users at the event is that they were taken out of a real moment by an application on their mobile devices. As I looked at this picture it made me wonder if we really need applications on our mobile devices

To avoid falling into the thralls of a semantical debate about needs and wants, let’s consider the question of whether we could survive in the modern world without the applications on our mobile devices instead of whether we actually need applications on our mobile devices. Phone apps, like most technological evolutions, are a pandoras box of possibilities that once released cannot be put back. Look at Airplanes. We don’t necessarily need airplanes to get around the world but without them it would be impossible for you to make it to that conference in Rome next week and still be back in time for your daughter’s ballet recital next month. Once we became open to the possibility of travelling from North America to Europe in under 10 hours the idea of taking that 45-day journey by boat is not even an option. Travel is a lot more of a black and white issue than phone applications because for years most things you could do on your phone you could also do on your computer, however, as applications evolved so did our dependency on them.

What’s interesting is when you look at the applications for mobile use that can’t be met on a desktop computer it becomes evident that a lot of them have to do with your location. Things like banking and checking the weather can easily be done on your computer. Music devices still exist outside of your phone, stores still exist in brick and mortar, sports updates, food and dating can all still be found somewhere else but information about you and where exactly you are can only really be tracked by your mobile device. When our phones die and we’re not at home there’s almost a sense of panic. How am I going to get an Uber? How would I call a cab? How do I get where I’m going? And how do I even let them know that I’m coming?

In the modern world life outside of your home without your phone is barely sustainable. The need for real time information has become too high for us to keep up with the pace of the world around us. I wonder if that woman at the movie premiere might have been okay with watching a video of the event had she not been able to go in person. It could be that she’s a purist – for her being there physically is the only real way to experience life. Or maybe she just let the modern, fast pace, socially and technologically integrated world pass her by and is content with simply living in the moment until her last. There’s nothing wrong with being unplugged. In fact, studies suggest being too plugged in is doing a lot of harm to the youth of the world. But there’s a reason that businesses seek to target the younger generation for employment and their services – everything is going digital, and every young person is plugged in.

After the COVID -19 pandemic in 2020 and the new normal world we all live in, most businesses realized that they could efficiently run their business with their employees from home - saving thousands of dollars a year in real estate leases. Zoom has become the new conference table. People are pulling over in their cars to hop into a quick zoom meeting on their device. Social media platforms like LinkedIn are connecting employers with potential employees from all over the world and allowing them to share key information in their profiles. The importance of receiving information in real-time makes it unimaginable that we once lived in a world where you could only check and respond to emails while sitting at a computer. Phone applications reigned supreme prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but since the pandemic the necessity for mobile apps has reached a new height.

While recently travelling to Turkey my phone stopped charging on my second day of a 6-day trip. The inconvenience of not being able to check a maps app to find food locations, use google translate to easier communicate with locals and use social media apps to connect with new friends wasn’t even the worst part of not being able to access the different applications on my phone. While returning to Canada I printed all the necessary documents needed to travel – vaccination certificate, boarding pass, and CPR test confirmation. Even though I had all these papers, as I was returning to Canada through Pearson International airport in Toronto, I was asked to download the Arrive Canada app to fill out my COVID-19 screening exam. After informing the immigration officer that I did not have access to the application as my phone was not working, they allowed me to fill out one of the paper forms and enter the country with little resistance (though it definitely took me longer than everyone else with a phone).

The necessity for the mobile app actually came after I had passed immigration. A few days later I received an automated call from the government of Canada informing me that I was under a quarantine order - an officer even came to my house to check if I was quarantining. I informed her that there had been a mistake with the system, I was fully vaccinated and had gotten a negative PCR test prior to returning to Canada. She apologized for the confusion and let me know she would update the system – she didn’t, the calls kept coming. After 8 days I received a call from another agent, again making sure I was keeping up with quarantine, and during this call the agent let me know the reason for my quarantine status was because only statuses registered through the app are kept in the system. Even though I produced all the documents I may still be liable for a $5000 fine for non-compliance with the Quarantine Act. The agent was nice about it, removed me from the non-compliance list and we both agreed that the system was highly unfair against those without mobile devices or people in my situation where their phones were not working. The thing we didn’t have to say to each other because we both knew it to be true was that we can’t survive in the modern world without a mobile device and the applications that come with it.