I was 13 and late to the party.

Out of the 24 people in my middle school class, it was me and one other guy who beared the title "smartphone-less". But on September 13, 2014, my parents surprised me with the glorious and shiny Samsumg Galaxy S3 Neo. It was notorious for having a battery that survived for about a year before you had to buy a new one, which I did twice in the 3 or so years while I had this device.

I already had a phone before that - I don't remember the model, but it had around the thickness of 1.5 thumbs, a touchscreen and a contract that only allowed calls. No SMS and no internet. That was great because I was actually a really shy guy who had to rehearse what I would say for 10 minutes before calling anyone. So no, I didn't really use it. But it was 2011 when I got that. Facebook was still cool. Music was shared via bluetooth and I really didn't feel the need for a Smartphone. At first.

You want to know how to make a 12 year old want something? Give it to their peers. More and more kids from my class started playing games like Subway Surfer on their phone during breaks. People would gather around the best players and watch them play. But it was during a week-long school trip that I remember feeling FOMO intensely for the first time. At night, when boys and girls were seperated into their own rooms, the way to communicate and plan the sneaking around happened over Whatsapp. While everyone was lying in their beds, texting, I was forced to listen to their giggles and inside jokes that I had no hope to understand. I wasn't just not one of the cool kids, I was never part of the game.

So when I finally got my shiny new device, I was ready to finally belong. And that is exactly what didn't happen. To be honest, I don't remember much of the early days with my smartphone. I remember being very geeky with it, diving deep into the custom settings and changing everything I can. I remember downloading a dating app within a year of owning it (I was 14). But you know what I do remember clearly? Hearing about a "leaked" popularity list that was "secretly" created by the girls in my class...and landing last place. I pretended like I didn't care, but that hurt. "I mean last Place?! Below Cedrik?!" I learned that having the same toys as the cool kids doesn't change anything. You don't give a nerd a phone and make him part of the tribe, you just end up with a nerd with a phone.

10 Years Later.

This is a complex topic. It's so easy to paint anything good or evil nowadays. Mark Zuckerberg was recently questioned in court on behalf of the parents who have lost their children through suicide, likely pushed to some extent through his platforms. But I bet a 20 year old Mark had no intention of creating a platform that would allow terrorrists to thrive, or algorithms that promoted self-harm.

Personally, and I think many people will be with me on this, discovering platforms like Youtube, Instagram and Tiktok has been both one of the best and worst things to happen to me. Henceforth it is incredibly difficult to assess whether the mobile access to these sites has been a net positive or negative.

It is also difficult to seperate the software from the hardware. Would Instagram enjoy its popularity if it was only accessible via a Laptop or PC? Tiktok probably wouldn't - or would it? These platforms have become so intertwined with smartphones through the 2010s, it's impossible to say. So where do we start with this then?

What if...

Let's do a thought experiment. It's the current year and everything stays pretty much the same with one exception: our smartphones loose a couple of features. You can still call, text (that includes group chats) and use basic internet applications like E-Mail. Not included in this feature list is: internet browsing, a HD camera (only potato quality) and social media platforms (duh). You can still listen to radio and transfer audio files (like music or podcasts) from your computer. The only other way to send or receive media is through E-Mail or bluetooth. Social media still exists, just not on your phone.

How would your day to day life be different? Assuming you won't be holding a laptop in front of your face when you are bored while waiting in line (actually that's a pretty funny image), the Internet will likely play a much lesser role in your life. Of course, even now, we could choose to limit ourselves to certain features but that is incredibly hard. Even for someone like me, who quit social media, I still find ways to waste time on my phone. It's like waving a drug in front of an addict who is trying to quit. At first they might stay strong, but eventually they will fail to withhold themselves.

So I wonder: could an alternative reality ever have existed? One where Apple never introduced the iPhone? One where mobile phones got better, but companies never decided to connect them to high speed internet or put cameras into them? They simply got better in their original purpose: peer to peer communication. In that reality you would use your phone to call and text people, your (actual) camera to take photos, an iPod to listen to music and a desktop computer for everything else. You'd own a multitude of single-purpose devices that would be amazing at what they do, but nothing else. Perhaps there could even be an ultra thin, foldable device replacing Google Maps.

Who knows what kind of innovations we have missed out on because nobody would bother to invent something that your phone couldn't already do... Sure, you can watch a movie on a phone, but a TV or cinema screen will deliver a much better experience because that's what they were designed and optimized to do. So what other activities are there, which we use our phones for, but would actually be much better suited for a different technology, a technology perhaps that because of the smartphone never got the chance to be imagined.

I urge you to really think about that for a moment

Stationery Social Media

As to the success of social media without mobile access. I think they would have found success, but not all platforms equally. Facebook was big before smartphones got mainstream and so was Youtube. Perhaps the daily active user stat would be lower since we might not have the same daily access to a computer as we do with phones. Tiktok as it originated might not have found a similar success, but perhaps its type of algorithm would. Online content would likely be of higher quality, both in production and content since the output will be lower and more thought through.

Conclusion

But I'm still split on this. I met some peope that are important to me via apps. Even if those apps had a website version, who knows if I would have discovered them. Honestly, there's a lot of "if's" to completely push me to the side of smartphone = bad when looking at the whole picture. But IF.... the digital infrastructure that made my life as it is today, was fully accessable as a website and people would use them, then I would say yes, life without a smartphone would probably be better overall. I'm sure there will be plenty of arguments against that statement and even as I'm writing this I can think of some (e.g. travelling), but taking everything into account (including that 20 years ago everyone was fine without them), I believe to be right.

As we look ahead, there's some really exciting tech on the horizon that might replace smartphones in the coming decades which I'm really excited about! Meta showcased a prototype of its Orion smart glasses recently that showed some promise. Perhaps there is hope of finding a technological balance between versitilty and mental and societal health - a future where mobile technology is once again a tool and not an entertainment device...then again there is big money to be made, going into the other direction.

Thank you for reading.