https://www.sapiens.org/culture/anthropology-smartphones/
"In 2022, the smartphone, first introduced by IBM, will celebrate its 30th
birthday. Most of us now use a smartphone every day—whether we like it or not.
Previously associated with young people, these technologies have become
ubiquitous around the world and among all age groups. But what exactly is a
smartphone, and what are these devices doing to people’s connections with one
another, especially across generations?
That is precisely what our long-term collaborative study, the Anthropology of
Smartphones and Smart Ageing, set out to investigate. A team of 11
anthropologists conducted 16-month-long ethnographic studies across nine
countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. Our researchers then
compared their findings on the impacts of the device on the experience of
midlife and aging, paying special attention to the field of mobile health
technologies.
One major finding with implications for public health is that people are
adapting popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp to support their health,
rather than relying only on formal mobile health apps and other top-down public
health initiatives. As COVID-19 took hold in 2020, looking at how people were
using smartphones became even more urgent. Smartphones became seen as devices
that can receive and deliver care—but they also are used for what could be
perceived as surveillance, whether by relatives, friends, authorities, or the
state.
At the same time, for many during the pandemic, smartphones became the main
instruments facilitating social connection and communication with family and
friends. Our project aimed to capture the positives, the negatives, and the
complexities in between when it comes to how people around the world relate to
these devices.
Along with publishing our findings in book format, our project is committed to
pushing the boundaries of academic dissemination through research-driven visual
storytelling. Three comics that illustrate our findings are presented below.
These were created through a collaboration with U.K.-based comics artist John
Cei Douglas."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
