Smartphones: An Introduction

You just got a “smartphone”, or will be receiving one soon, no doubt at the bequest of your twenty-something child or even younger grandchild. They rushed to you with eyes sparkling, shoving a brick with brightly colored icons in your face, saying “Here! You need this!”

You remember when phones had a rotary dial, and then buttons. You also remember when they were used primarily for calls. You can’t even find a call button on this thing. Your guide is rattling off about video chats and Facebook and apps (what on earth is an app?!) with thumbs flying furiously across the screen at lightning speed, and you can’t even figure out how the device turns on.

They roll their eyes at you. “It’s so easy!” they say. “Give me that, I’ll show you.” And then they jump from screen to screen, flicking and pushing and turning and tapping. You want to ask how they did that, but you don’t even know what that is, or where to start. You feel hopelessly lost, and don’t even want to look at the thing anymore. You’ll never figure it out.

Stop! You aren’t stupid or slow. And you can figure it out. It just takes time.

See, we of this generation grew up at a time when computers really started taking off for home use. We got to see most of the evolution of cellular phones from a young age, when our minds are most curious and like sponges. During our teenage years, when smartphones became available commercially, we didn’t have anything better to do than sit for hours and hours and explore and play with them. We had the time to master them.

But you come from a different circumstance. You grew up and matured without smartphones or Google, so you know you don’t need one to survive – you’ve done just fine thus far. You’re also busy. You have meetings, conference calls, errands, things to do, work to be done, and you need something that’s just going to work. You don’t have the hours of spare time to sit around trying to figure out this darn thing.

So how can you hope to catch up?

Over the next few weeks to months, I’m going to be posting a series of articles meant to help you figure out the device you have, one step at a time. I am going to start small, with the things you intend to use your phone for like making calls and explaining text messages, and will work my way into the deeper topics (apps, customizing it to make your life easier, etc.). Feel free to skip around and come back for reference as needed, but if you want the full experience, I would suggest going from beginning to end.

If you have any ideas or specific questions you would like for me to discuss, please, do not hesitate to comment below or use the contact form to the right.

If you’re reading this, you’ve already got your foot in the door of the technological revolution. Let’s take that and make it work for you!