The year was 2007. Steve Jobs walked on stage and introduced the world to the iPhone. Nothing has been the same since.
Some thought it was silly. A few thought there was no way people would want to carry such a small computer–and make no mistake, in one of the slickest slight of hand moments, the world was convinced (and remains convinced) that they are carrying a phone, when the reality is that they have a mini-computer in their hands. Yet, within a year, the smartphone revolution had taken over.
This graphic is just one of several to indicate the power and impact of the smartphone. 
While this one from Fast Company focuses on the decline of Microsoft’s power in terms of Operating Systems (OS), the impact since 2007 is clear.
Today, we are swirling in a shifting culture that has communication tools and concepts that have never been known in the history of the world. According to Fast Company’s research, over 50% of the US adult population owns a smartphone.
There’s really too much to try and indicate here, so here’s just one story. I was chatting yesterday with a friend about child-rearing. I mentioned that one regret I had with my own girls was that we didn’t try to be more strict about nighttime use of their various devices.
However, in a tame attempt to deflect some of my concerns, I noted that my girls had used their devices for fairly normal things, including music. I mean, as the graphic demonstrates, the iPod in 2005 really paved the way for the iPhone. And that was initially just about music…but Apple stretched it over time to include, well, everything else. So, my daughter listening to music at night is not such a hard concept to grasp.
And then came the apps…followed by the next revolution in relational connection through social media. So, back to my daughters….and every other person with a smartphone. All of a sudden, no longer was it just music, but conversations and pictures and friends and likes. My friend’s young child will probably be immersed in this world before the fifth birthday. The small computer (whether smartphone or tablet….mini-computers all) has taken the place of babysitter, new toy, and TV (could best friend be far behind).
Today, the world is a vastly different place. Note…I am not saying its a necessarily worse place. Our ancestors would probably have given much to have this communication tool. There is much to be said in favor of the ability to maintain connection with old friends or loop in a work team or school project group through a shared document and shared communication happening over distance.
But at the same time, it is easy to see the challenge to our culture and how we exist as a society of people together. At the end of the day, if nothing else, we have lost any sense that in the midst of the multitude of methods to communicate that we really are talking to one another. I Facebook you, but you Twitter, while our third friend mostly does Instagram. That person’s friend spends all their time on Pinterest, but other friends are in Google Hangouts. Email, Kik, Vine, Snapchat, Wechat, Path…on and on. The impact is a desperate race to keep up, or the resignation that I can’t keep up which means I no longer am in contact.
I strongly suspect that in the years to come, researchers will talk about the vast change that occurred in this most critical of decades (the decade of what should be our next great national crisis [read more here, and even better here]). They will look at the impact to how we understand our social connection to one another, to the concept of an organized civic entity. Perhaps worse, I am convinced that this change has produced an onslaught of information that now crashes over us in a way that causes a deep stress among individuals as they race to try and maintain some sense of connection.
Seven years….that is all it took. Yes, we can see the roots of this as far back as the 1960s and 1970s with the personal computer revolution, but few could see this. It is a changed world. Get ready for the wild ride yet to come. Hoping to figure out how to prepare—take a read here (no, there’s no warning to start buying months of groceries), but do get ready: Preparing for The Great Crisis