Eight ways the iPhone has changed society in 10 years

On June 29, 2007, the day the iPhone first went on sale, it would have been hard for anyone to imagine the monumental impact the device has had on society, even now-late Apple CEO Steven Jobs.

Ushering in the smart phone era has changed the way people interact, and perhaps even re-wired the brain. It has played a part in everything from love to war to politics to crime.

This won’t be the only blog today list on the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone, so I’ll keep with the theme of my latest novel and focus on the way these pocket-sized computers have transformed social interaction. Why am I listing eight ways instead of 10? Because in the age of mobile news, who has the patience to scroll down a 10-point list?

No more privacy in public

I hear a lot of prior generation athletes talk about the wild times they had on the road, partying and drinking and saying outrageous things in bars. Rarely did any of the details come to light, and when they did, it was based on memories, not proof.

Now, anytime something remotely controversial happens, it’s often captured on a camera phone. If there’s a pro athlete or celebrity involved, that’s almost a certainty. So people can’t simply mouth off without consequences.

The language of emojis

The emoji was created in 1998, but it didn’t take off as an common part of language until the smart phone. Text messaging, Facebook and Twitter are arts of the written word. Emojis says things that words can’t quite say, or they emphasize the meaning of sentences.

Unlike words, emojis can’t be translated into vocal language. There’s also unregulated and unlimited. No 26 characters here.

I’m still waiting for the first all emoji novel.

Constantly plugged in

People used to access the internet mostly at home or in the workplace on a desktop computer, or on a bulky laptop at a rare WiFi hot spot. Now the vast majority of the country has wireless internet access through a cellular network, and websites have been configured for mobile views, which is the fastest growing segment of traffic.

The good news is people can work and stay plugged into information remotely. No more sneaking out of the wedding to check the score on the TV at the bar. There’s no reason to drive around looking for a restaurant or a gas station.

The bad news is work has become inescapable. No matter where you go, people can email you and text you. People with important responsibilities are expected to respond no matter what. So it’s harder to truly unplug.

Instant information

I started journalism in college, writing for the Miami Hurricane student newspaper and then as an intern at the St. Augustine Record in 1999. There’s been a huge change in the expectations for news delivery over the years, especially since the smart phone era began.

People used to receive a brief overview of the day’s news during the evening telecast, and then a more detailed analysis in the next morning’s paper. Now, not only is the morning paper full of old news, so is the evening telecast. First people expected websites with stories updated regularly, hopefully within an hour of breaking news. That’s no longer good enough. With mobile phones in hand, people scroll Twitter and Facebook for instance news - reports within seconds of events, or even live streaming video.

Social media works so fast that some traditional news sites simply embed a social media feed about an event instead of writing a story (which I find highly annoying).

The drawback here is accuracy. The faster a reporter works, the easier it is to make mistakes. It can take time to verify information, but the pressure of instant news doesn’t allow for any delays.

Forever documenting the moment

Having a camera phone at all times allows people to capture every moment of their lives, but is capturing the moment the same as living in the moment?

At concerts and sporting events, especially in Miami, a huge amount of people are on their phones. Are they truly engaged in the action? Or are they trying to create a video to shows off to their jealous friends? A football games, some people are so distracted by their fantasy football league that they aren’t into the game in front of them.

Entertainment is personal

A decade ago, most home entertainment was spent in front of the TV screen or video game console. A family might be watching the same show on one set so they could share their experiences, or some family members might segment into different rooms to view their favorite programs.

Now, the TV is no longer king. Nielsen says that TV viewing by 18-24-year-olds has declined 39 percent since 2011. It also fell sharply in the 25-34 age group. That’s because millennials are spending more times on smartphones than watching TV.

So now family members can sit in the same room, and all be occupied by their individual devices - watching shows, playing games, surfing the web. They are together physically, not socially.

Shopping assistant

The smart phone has made it easier than ever to buy things no matter where you are. That’s great for the sake of convenience, no more trips to the store for one thing - as long as you can wait a day or two.

For compulsive shoppers, that means there’s no escape.

Redefining intelligence

In my high school and college years, certain classes focused on memorization. If you could memorize historical or scientific facts, etc, then you were smart. Even today, many game shows center around memorizing and repeating facts.

Under that definition of intelligence, anyone with a working smart phone is a genius. They can pull up any historical information, scientific fact, pop culture reference, spell perfectly, master geography, and solve the most common math problems. What’s the point of memorizing all of that when the information is one second away in a pocket-sized device? And why are many classes still structured as if smart phones were never invented?

So what’s it mean now to be smart. Perhaps the new intelligence means the ability to separate real information from fake news.

Hacking isn’t journalism, it’s a crime

I might take heat from other journalists for saying this, but someone needs to speak up.

Hacking to obtain information isn’t journalism. It’s a crime, and journalists should stop supporting it.

The way many news outlets are covering WikiLeak’s irresponsible data dump, including personal passwords stolen from emails, is encouraging the hackers. The chairman of Clinton’s campaign had his phone and social media accounts taken over because the hackers shared his passwords with the world.

That’s not blowing the whistle on corruption. That’s harassment.

There are many times when journalists will write important stories based on documents that parties didn’t intend to release. In the Panama Papers series, for instance, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shared documents about international banking that a whistleblower found at their law firm with a team of journalists. That resulted in many stories about public official corruption and questionable transactions. However, the journalists didn’t release every single document, and they certainly didn’t put personal information out there. They created a searchable database that tied individuals to companies.

Compare that to WikiLeaks, which has released social security and credit card numbers in its unedited data dumps. What’s the journalistic purpose in that?

The Panama Papers came from a whistleblower at the bank who had access to the documents. Many times, people who see something wrong can’t come forward without getting in trouble, so they pass on information they were privy to.

You could also argue that Edward Snowden was a whistleblower because the government information he had access to shook his moral compass, although he could have been much more careful not to release confidential information that put lives at risk. Snowden has criticized WikiLeaks for its “hostility to even modest curation."

The hackers who have stolen emails from politicians are not blowing the whistle because they didn’t have the right to access that information in the first place. It’s akin to the Watergate break in where operatives for President Nixon stole files from the Democratic Party. But this time the media is playing along and publicizing the documents that were stolen. Since we know that the hackers have a political motive, how can the media trust that the information supposedly in the email is accurate?

Maybe because there hasn’t been a real bombshell. But that’s besides the point.

This isn’t a political issue. It’s a crime that can be used against any party, or company. Remember when North Korea hacked Sony Pictures because they were offended by a comedy movie about Kim Jung-Un? I spoke out against that too.

Hacking will happen whether the media covers it or not, but promoting hacked material helps the criminals injure their victims. It’s like when people share videos of teens getting bullied or beaten up on social media, and how that amplifies the pain and embarrassment. The more it hurts, the more likely the bully will strike again, and that goes for the hacker as well.

In the never-ending battle for ratings and clips, sometimes journalists need to stop and think about the behavior they’re promoting.

Brian Williams shouldn’t return to NBC News

Did I ever tell you about the time I broke out of Saddam Hussein’s prison with a nail filer, stormed his palace single-handedly and escaped seconds before the entire complex exploded? No?

Good, because it didn’t happen. If only Brian Williams could separate fact from fantasy.

The six month suspension NBC News slapped evening news anchor and managing editor Williams with today isn’t enough. The breach of trust he created with the public is too deep to fully repair.

That’s not to say Williams can’t continue his career. There’s simply no way he can be the face of a news organization, an institution that must command credibility, when his credibility is shot.

It’s one thing to make a mistake in a story or to misspeak. All journalists, me included, can admit to the occasional error as long as it’s promptly corrected.

However, Williams’ repeated yarns about being in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq weren’t a mere mistake. His fictional account of events provided for some entertaining banter as he sat on the couch across from David Letterman. It made him seem brave. Williams forgot that the news is about world events and the public, not him.

That wasn’t a slip up. That wasn’t the fog of war clouding his memory. I don’t see how any civilian who is rarely in dangerous situations could mistake a life-and-death event like that.

The six month suspension, which will cost him about $5 million, will allow time for the controversy to cool off. Still, I don’t see how the public can accept Williams being the mouthpiece for NBC News or its managing editor. He could return to NBC, or elsewhere, as a correspondent with someone fact-checking his work. But he can’t be the person with the ultimate responsibility for the entire broadcast.

An honest reputation takes a second to destroy and a lifetime to rebuild.

Now if Williams wants some pointers on writing fiction, I can volunteer. Ever hear about the time right after Hurricane Katrina when Williams’ boat was attacked by a mutant, purple eyed gator?

Media screwed up big time on smear of Senator Menendez

In an age when an unproven accusation can spread like wildfire on the Internet, too many media outlets are guilty of repeating shoddy information that damages reputations. That’s what happened to New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. 

It started when The Daily Caller, a conservative website, publicized a story shortly before election day citing confidential sources that the Democrat had sex parties with underage hookers after flying to the Dominican Republic on the private jet of a wealthy doctor. Never mind that the women and the man in the accusatory video weren’t identified and they offer no proof beyond their words (which later turned out worthless).

Then similar accusations were echoed by government watchdog the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, citing emails from a supposed “whistle blower” Peter Williams. Never mind that they didn’t meet Williams, or verify that he’d be in position to know such things about the senator. 

The story got picked up by mainstream media – nearly all national outlets and many local newspapers. Did these outlets talk to the supposed prostitutes? Did they verify the story from their own sources? No.

None of them explicitly said Menendez was guilty, but being accused of adultery, pedophilia and political corruption are damning labels. This had to hurt Menendez not just professionally, but in his personal life.

Now it turns out the story is BS. Police in the Dominican Republic say the supposed prostitutes in the video were paid to lie about the senator. They actually have never met him. Now the tone of the stories has shifted to “Who Framed Senator Bob Menendez” and “Official Seeks Mystery Man Linked to ‘Smear’of Senator Bob Menendez.”

Hello? Where was that self-righteousness at these same media outlets when they allowed themselves to be the mouthpieces of that smear campaign? 

Anyone can accuse people of horrible things, but that doesn’t mean the media has to repeat those allegations and drag people through the mud. That is especially true when the person making the accusation hides behind a wall of secrecy. The credibility of the source, and whether they’ll survive public scrutiny, must always be considered. 

 I’ve been told many shocking things about individuals and companies that I haven’t released in my paper. Why? Either because I couldn’t verify it, there was enough doubt in my mind that I didn’t feel reasonably certain it was true, the source had too much of an ax to grind for me to base my trust on them alone, or I felt that the accusation, while interesting, was too personal and not fit for a business audience. 

I know that my paper picks up stories from other outlets. I’m not comfortable quoting a story based on confidential sources that aren’t my own. That’s what the mainstream media did wrong with Senator Menendez’s case. They based their reporting on confidential sources The Daily Caller and CREW had, and even they apparently haven’t confirmed the identity of those sources. 

Who is that guy in the video with the hookers? We don’t know. But he looks trustworthy. Let’s take his word that this senator slept with them. 

And then they trusted emails to CREW, not directly to their media outlets, by a guy who may not even be using his real name. I get plenty of tips from anonymous emailers and, while I might follow up to verify them by other means, I’d never use them as a source in a story. Yet, these mainstream media outlets did that with second hand emails. That was terrible judgment.

Part of the problem is media peer pressure. One paper might be sitting on a story they aren’t sure of, then a competitor reports it with shoddy sourcing. All of a sudden, the first paper has to match them. And from there it spreads, true or not. Few have the courage to sit there with their arms crossed and refuse to publish a story they don’t believe in.

 

Of course, Senator Menendez has no real recourse for this smear campaign. If he could find the guy in the video who paid the girls to lie – and whoever set him up to it – he’d probably have a claim, but the media that irresponsibly picked up the shoddy story won’t pay for it. The libel laws allow you to saw pretty much anything about the public figure and, as long as you didn’t know it’s a total lie when you said it, they can can't do much about it. 

However, there is another price that the media pays, and we all pay it equally. It’s a loss of credibility.