Mr. Retro

Happy New Year!

For some weeks , I have been brooding over mobile technology. Unlike the many bloggers with huge followings (no bitterness here...), I am a late technology adopter. I just got my first smart phone two months ago. This is my first entry started on an iPad, my mother's actually (could not finish it though, more on that later).

My impressions are that once again, technology has taken a major leap. We can now email, text, play games, watch video and so much more. It is not without its frustrations and limitations, and many apps are disappointing while others are amazing.

What impresses me the most is the powerful impact on our ability to focus. Years ago in Journalism school, we were  talking about the end of mass media through fragmentation and niche audiences. That day has come and gone. But what we never really discussed is how this narrow casting of information and entertainment affects our ability to focus. I notice with myself an increasing inability to read an entire email and take in all the information. Meetings have long been changed by mobile devices that let people multitask, in other words, do something other than pay attention. I notice it in my attempts to follow Tweetdeck throughout the day for a relatively small number of feeds. I am constantly interrupting other activities to check what is going on.

I do not mean to decry this change, just note that the need to repeat and break through is ever increasing. Social media gives us that opportunity to reach people directly but does not guarantee attention. We will have to learn the effective ways to achieve this. Mobile media is a wonderful, powerful tool to reach people directly 24/7. The real challenge is to genuinely ensure that they are listening AND paying attention.

What does mobile technology still lack? I think it is the effectiveness of a real keyboard. We can do pretty much anything else but type quickly and edit on a decent sized screen. And given the quirks in Blogspot and the small screen on an iPad, I had to wait to get to a big screen to finish this posting. Food for thought!

Thanks for reading!