Editor’s note: One-fourth of the way through this century, TribLive is looking ahead to the next 25 years, using the events of the past 25 as a road map of what possibly is to come. This installment of the occasional series looks at technology and social media.
Jessica Ghilani vividly recalls the buzz in the air as she joined the line outside the Apple Shadyside store in 2008, ready to claim her very first iPhone.
“We were so excited,” she said. “We were just astounded by all it could do and how good the screen looked.”
Ghilani, social media expert and University of Pittsburgh associate professor of communication, said she splurged to buy a special case to protect her Apple smartphone, a big upgrade from her flip phone.
“I remember just feeling like this is something I really need to take care of,” she said.
The first generation of the iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs in 2007. It was a massive technological development this past quarter-century. Where the next 25 years take us likely involves wearable technology, artificial intelligence and possibly more regulation.
But the iPhone doesn’t appear to be on its way to becoming outdated any time soon.
“There were devices before the iPhone that were smartphones, but it really just revolutionized the entire genre,” Ghilani said.
All-in-one tool
Smartphones have become essential appendages of everyday life.
“Our phones are these incredibly powerful computers,” Ghilani said, citing features like the photo app, music apps, apps for banking, shopping and gaming, as well as instant directions through maps. “This one device does so many things. … It’s just everything.”
The vast majority of Americans now own a cellphone of some kind, at 98%, according to Pew Research Center. About 91% own a smartphone, compared to the first survey of smartphone ownership that was conducted in 2011, showing just 35%.
First phone?
“The sheer volume of what you can do with this one tool is really astonishing: A lot of us don’t stop to think about how powerful it is,” Ghilani said.
The feeling of panic when losing a phone speaks to how important they have become, she said. Society views them as indispensable.
“It’s much more convenient storage-wise to have everything in this nice concise package that fits in my pocket,” Ghilani said. “It’s just such a huge deal in society … and how we communicate in everyday life.”
The iPhone has evolved since its release with various sizes and features, like the App Store.
In 2023, Apple eclipsed Samsung as the world’s smartphone leader holding 20% of the global market share.
Chronically online
When Mitchell Nagy started kindergarten, there weren’t computers in every classroom. By the time he graduated from high school, everyone had a laptop.
“We literally watched it take over,” he said of technology’s rise over the last 25 years.
Nagy, 28, of Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes, is right in the middle of millennials, who were born between 1981 and 1996, and Generation Z, who were born between 1997 and 2012. He was born in 1996, and considers himself more of a millennial.
“Having grown up in transitionary period allows people around my age to have unique perspective,” he said. “Some of us remember a pre-technology world and a post-technology world.”
Even simple features like navigation apps have brought positive changes to everyday life, Nagy said. He remembers his parents having to print MapQuest directions before trips.
“Now, Google Maps adjusts … automatically if there’s traffic,” he said.
Nagy got his first flip phone in seventh grade and his first iPhone in 10th grade as a Christmas gift. He said he was on the latter end of the technology upgrade, as his peers had already gotten the new phones.
“It definitely improved my social ability,” he said. “It felt like it kind of opened up a new world for me.”
Despite the iPhone’s countless easy-to-access hallmarks, Nagy conceded the rise of Apple’s smartphone brought negatives as well.
In late high school after getting his new phone, he said he started using social media platforms.
“It’s a great outlet to share ideas, but at the same time (there are) drawbacks,” Nagy said. “We’ve kind of seen what social media is, what it can do good and bad. Now is the time to refine our relationship with it.”
Featured Local Businesses
People around his age have experienced body image issues, cyberbullying and deepfake AI images, he said, all while battling misinformation and disinformation in the political sphere online.
Nagy said he’s made a recent conscious effort to calibrate his relationship with technology and social media, trying to be more mindful of cutting down on screen time to make it healthier. He said he’s noticed other millennials and Generation Z making similar moves as well.
“I’m not saying that everybody has a problem with it or everyone needs to reassess their relationship with social media,” Nagy said. “If scrolling is making you anxious and stressed out, then stop doing it.”
Ghilani said if she’s sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, she will usually be checking her email.
“We are constantly able to be tethered,” she said. “The fact that we can work from anywhere, the fact that we can check our email from another country … it means our work lives and our personal lives have blurred, the boundaries around the work day.”
Since these lines are virtually nonexistent, Ghilani said activities can become joyless, such as shopping online compared to taking kids to a toy store.
“There has to be balance,” she said. “Just because we can do everything through a device doesn’t mean that we don’t still need each other.”
‘Blessing and a curse’
Ghilani said it would be impossible to have social media impact society in the way it does without smartphones, which allow people to have powerful cameras in their pockets at all times to document life.
“It’s not just about being a person consuming that content, but it’s the fact that this is the device that a lot of content creators use for their own work,” she said. “Young people are prone to doing a lot of their shopping, streaming movies, television on their phone, short form video — a lot of that is through the phone.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said smartphones have been transformative tools in the health industry.
“When it comes to infectious disease, smartphones and social media are — on balance — major forces for good that have allowed rapid dissemination of news regarding outbreaks and mystery infections as well as facilitating communication among subject matter experts,” he said.
Adalja gained significant recognition during the 2020 covid pandemic, leveraging social media to share updates. Despite his efforts to educate the public, his posts sometimes attract harsh criticism and vitriol from online readers.
“I am trying to use social media to provide and catalog information on infectious diseases that I find interesting,” he said. “If people want to insult and threaten me for that — which they continually do — that is their depravity, not mine.”
It’s become necessary for companies to create mobile-friendly versions of their websites as these changes have evolved, Ghilani said, which speaks to how much people prioritize their screen time.
“I think social media … it’s a blessing and a curse,” she said. “We can be connected, but the depth of our connection with one another is very much a surface connection through social media. It’s not the same as going out for coffee.”
Ghilani said she believes the rise of smartphones directly hastened the dominance and popularity of social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
‘This form of connecting through media has been around for as long as we’ve had mass media, but … the iPhone, it hit the gas for a lot of these companies who were primarily were designed for a desktop,” she said.
‘Not going anywhere’
Though it’s hard to predict what’s in the immediate technological future, Ghilani said she believes it’s “not going anywhere.”
“I imagine that artificial intelligence will become more effective over time, and therefore something that more and more people are turning to for a lot of assistance for the tasks that they’re already doing on their phone,” she said.
There’s already an AI arms race happening to be the most dominant company in that realm, according to Ghilani, and she said she’s interested what happens.
Nagy said he believes the coming quarter-century will bring more wearable technology, such as smart watches, workout rings and VR headsets.
Featured Local Businesses
“I think the only thing that can really unseat smartphones is wearable tech,” he said.
In the next 25 years, Ghilani predicts there will be a greater bipartisan push for “guardrails” surrounding technology, such as data protection regulation.
“Social media doesn’t help digital well-being,” Ghilani said. “I think there will be a shift at some point. I don’t know what’s going to cause it, but I feel like it’s just not sustainable.”