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by keithpeter 5169 days ago
"In my social circle of non-tech people everyone uses their phones for texting and calls. Thats about it. Most have smart phones, a few play games or use their phone as an mp3 player. That really is about it."

Most people in my social circle, and the students I teach, are now using their mobile phone as their preferred Web access device. I just noticed this coming in over the last 18 months or so.

I gave out the wolfram alpha web address last week when teaching basic algebra and graph work to some teenagers. Out came the mobiles, and we had graphs being drawn with different parameters and compared.

On the train on the way into College in the mornings, I'm usually the only one with a netbook or notebook (paper). Most of the others have their phones out.

I think the change is happening, but, as you say, not immediately.

1 comments

Likewise, I've seen similar in my environment. I think the difference is that mobile will enlarge the market, not displace full function devices - it's not CD killing the cassette tape (as the original article author seems to imply). Systems catering for mobile consumption will see increased use, but that doesn't mean decreased use for those not.

The change is presenting as a line continuing to blur between computing devices (laptop/tablets/phones/etc)... and that isn't taking much time at all.