NEW YORK - The rise of smartphones and the subsequent embracing of social media has gone a long way to changing how we as a society communicate with one another, and those changes, while positive in many ways, also come with a equal number of negative factors that are having a detrimental effect on our collective social wellness, according to experts.
Experts have noted that this can be especially detrimental for college and university students, who should be taking advantage of being on a large and diverse campus by establishing relationships and learning from people from different walks of life. File photo: Pixabay.
Nowadays, people are communicating more than ever through social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a whole host of others. While this is a great thing in terms of staying in touch with people that you might ordinarily not be able to, experts are saying that in many ways, smartphones and social media have resulted in people having less connection with one another than ever before in many ways.
Previously, people would get together and have meaningful conversations where tone of voice, body language, and spontaneous replies would provide a truly cohesive and connecting experience between two or more people. Fast-forward to today, and social media apps have reduced that act to mere surface-level conversing, greatly reducing the quality of conversation overall. Things like empathy and establishing a connection tend to fall by the wayside when you're merely typing in a quick sentence on social media, clicking submit, and then forgetting about it until you eventually receive a notification of a reply.
In fact, it's this style of communication that has created a rampant sense of narcissism among social media users, who primarily use the apps to inform people about themselves and their daily happenings as opposed to being concerned with the affairs of others. This factor has been described by experts as someone essentially shouting “look at me! Look at me!” over and over into a void. It’s this type of behavior that has proven that, while social media does have its distinct benefits, overall social wellness is being compromised and undermined as a result.
Experts have noted that this can be especially detrimental for college and university students, who should be taking advantage of being on a large and diverse campus by establishing relationships and learning from people from different walks of life. Instead, reports say, individuals note that social media use usually leads to fewer interactions and an overall less enriching experience. In addition, losing the face-to-face aspect of conversing with someone has been found to greatly reduce interpersonal skills that are vitally needed when a student graduates from college and goes on into the workforce, where they will have no choice then but to have to deal with people directly.
Of course, smartphones can even get in the way when you are engaging with someone face-to-face. Studies have shown that when lulls in the conversation occur, instead of finding something new to talk about or simply feeling comfortable enough with the company you're in to not mind an occasional bout of silence, many people will pull out their phones instead as a source of distraction or as an artificial means of engagement.
After all, in today's world of digital instant gratification – where information, videos, and entertainment are merely a button press away at all times – any dip in a conversation might make today's attention deficit disorder-afflicted population uncomfortable. However, people would benefit to leave the cell phones behind when meeting up with friends, and using any lull in the conversation to think, reflect, and then return to the conversation with intention and a renewed and different perspective, resulting in a stronger connection with the people you are with.
Reports also indicate that more and more people are feeling depressed and anxious nowadays, and a lot of experts attribute that to the rise and increase in cell phone use. Yes, you may have a lot of followers on Instagram and have a lot of back and forth, one-sentence conversations with these people, but ultimately, deep down, these people know that these are merely superficial relationships and at the end of the day, these relationships are not fueling ones innate desire to belong and have true connections. Putting the cell phone aside here and there and engaging in real world, face-to-face activity with others would not only strengthen the bonds between friends, but also enhance these relationships – and your own personal sense of self-worth – in a more meaningful way.
Smartphones and social media are here to stay, and when used within the correct context in one's life, they can certainly be informative and enriching experiences. However, as a society, we need to learn to be more selective regarding how and when we use them, and more importantly, when NOT to use them. After all, no experience on your cell phone is going to compare to having its real-life equivalent with somebody who you truly have a strong and distinct connection with, will it?
NEW YORK - As technology continues its rapid evolution and growth on a near daily basis, we have found ourselves having to do less and less outside of the digital world when it comes to everyday tasks. One by one, things we used to have to do manually can now be done on a computer, or even more conveniently, from the palm of our hand via any recently-designed smartphone.
One of the things this new era of technology has deemed the most obsolete is that clunky old contraption known as the print phone directory. The mainstay of American households for over a century, in recent years phone-books have taken on a smaller and smaller role in our lives, to the point where their detriment to society has clearly outweighed their usefulness. Aside from being hopelessly out-of-date shortly after publication, there are a number of environmental factors to consider in both their creation and destruction after their admittedly short but useful life has concluded. That said, here's a handy list of a number of activities that you may or may not have realized have fallen by the wayside in our new-and-improved digital age. While most of these changes represent a new era of convenience and efficiency, one could argue that some of them may actually represent steps backwards in our evolutionary cycle. It's up to you to be the judge.
An old beaten up phone book with, believe it or not, a phone book holder hanging beneath it. File photo: Pixabay.
In addition to many phone-book-related items, this list also includes other daily, all-too-common activities that are falling by the wayside as technology marches on. Some might read this list and grow a little nostalgic for the way things were, while others may appreciate the many advantages of technology today all the more.
1) Memorizing phone numbers
In the olden days – the olden days being the 80s and early 90s – people actually had to memorize phone numbers of their friends and loved ones, or short of that, at least carry around a small, hand-written phone book to keep those numbers within reach when they were needed. But nowadays, every cell phone has a dedicated contacts directory, and you can call anyone you know by voicing a command. That said, most people nowadays would probably have trouble telling you the phone number of their own mother or girlfriend, let alone the numbers of people they have far less contact with. While it is certainly convenient to be able to do this, one could argue that the less we use the brains, the worse off we are as a species.
2) Using a phone book to find a company to do work at your house
Modern generations, such as Generation Z and Millennials, probably don't even know what a Yellow Pages phone book is. More often than not, they regularly turn to digital alternatives, as well as websites such as Angie's List and Yelp in order to find services they need when it comes to doing work on their home. Those aforementioned websites make it easy to read user reviews and ratings before deciding to contact a given company to ensure that you're getting the best quality for your money. Today, few, if anyone at all cracks open a print Yellow Pages directory. it's straight to the internet.
3) Figuring out math in your head
This is another category that goes hand-in-hand with memorizing phone numbers. Back in the day, people used to have to add, subtract, multiply, and more within the recesses of their very own brains. Not today. In addition to the plethora of other technologies available in your smartphone, the most basic of apps they all come with is a calculator. That's right, no one has to know how to count or do any other type of mathematical activity on their own any more, and once again one has to argue if that is or is not a good thing for us as a society. With every advance in technology, there are always pluses and minuses.
4) Telling time by using the hands on a clock
Analog clocks are nearly a thing of the past. People with smartphones are buying things like wall clocks and watches and smaller and smaller numbers, mainly using them as fashion statements or – with the advent of devices such as Fitbit – wrist-worn fitness trackers. Pretty soon we won’t be seeing clocks with hands at all anymore, as a growing segment of the population wouldn't even know what they were if they saw them.
5) Having a record or CD collection
I used to have a pretty big music CD collection. Now my collection is comprised of just a couple of favorites that I couldn't bear to part with; the rest were sold to the used CD store across town. That is, I sold them after I ripped all of them to my iTunes library. Nowadays, people are using their cell phones storing their entire music collections which can be instantly retrieved and listened to at will not only through a headphone jack, but thanks to Bluetooth technology, on a number of high-end digital speakers as well, making the smartphone a truly all-in-one experience when it comes to your daily activities. With more and more storage available on even base models, you can load up your phone with a nearly endless sea of MP3 files and enjoy listening to every song you have at anytime you want. That's a lot better than having to pick out just a handful of CDs to stick in your bag for a car trip or train ride like we used to do.
6) Printing your favorite photos and making a photo album
Here's another thing that's falling by the wayside. Remember going on a trip, taking all sorts of snapshots, and then going to your local pharmacy to have all those pictures developed so you could pick out the best ones to include in a physical photo album? Those days have come and gone; again, cell phone cameras are approaching – and in many cases exceeding – the quality of many high-end point-and-shoot digital cameras, and fewer and fewer people are actually bothering to print their shots out. Instead, they are content to leave them on their phones, which serve as massive portable digital photo albums for most people these days.
7) Looking up theater or movie times through the newspaper
Remember having to look up the phone number of your local theater in your Yellow Page directory? And after doing so, calling your theater and having to listen to an endless recording of the different movies and showtimes for that day? If you don't, perhaps it's for the best...it wasn't a very fun thing to do. But again, with the magic of smartphones, you can just simply type – or even speak – the name of any movie you're interested in seeing and your phone will provide a list of movie theaters and showtimes based on your GPS positioning. You can even purchase your tickets on your phone and have them texted or emailed to you, enabling you to skip the line at the cinema.
8) Running to the store for a last minute gift
I think just about everybody today is familiar with websites such as Amazon and their Prime program which offers free 2-day shipping – soon to become free 1-day shipping – which is perfect if you suddenly remembered your mother's birthday at the end of the week and are too busy to run out to the store and search endlessly for just the right gift. Instead, eCommerce sites offer a plethora of items at your fingertips with a variety of fast shipping options to take advantage of. No more pulling out phone books to find where stores are, or braving crowded malls and check-out lanes...instead, a few button-presses on your phone and your package will be well on its way to you. Granted, this sort of activity is shuttering a lot of local retail businesses, so you might want to think twice about doing this if you want to help support your own community. But sometimes time is a factor, and it's nice to have this option available when you need it.
9) Mailing a handwritten letter to someone
Nowadays a hand-written letter is simply a novelty and little more. With email, texting, Facebook, and a plethora of other options for staying in touch with people on a daily basis, letter-writing is seen by many as a thing of the past. It still is nice though when you want to add that personal touch to someone you are especially fond of, but otherwise it just doesn't happen much anymore.
10) Using a dictionary to see how to spell a word
With practically every program on your phone possessing a spell-checker of some sort, apparently people don't need to know how to spell anymore, either. Again, this goes hand-in-hand with knowing how to add, multiply or remember phone numbers. Like those other issues, this could certainly be seen as a negative, but there are times when you just wouldn't know how to spell a given word and it's nice to know that technology can help you from looking like a complete illiterate when it counts.
11) Making a phone call from a phone booth
I'm writing this article, and even I barely remember what a phone booth looks like. It's likely that anyone born from the early 1990’s on would even have any idea what a phone booth was, let alone what it looks like. That's probably not a bad thing.
12) Carrying cash
It seems more people nowadays are using credit and debit cards to pay for things than actual cash, but cash is still king...at least, for now. There are more and more apps arriving on phones – such as Google Play and others – that are making even carrying around plastic obsolete, let alone paper. But while any form of payment still works these days, you're going to see that currency is going digital sooner rather than later.
As you can see, smartphones add a great deal of convenience to our lives, and while some may argue that they also can be a detriment when it comes to our personal growth and evolution – after all, it's good to know how to count, spell and memorize things – cell phones nonetheless have become a part of daily life that few people can do without. This instance, I'd say the positives outweigh the negatives. At least, that is, for now.
NEW YORK - Yellow Pages United, an advertising company that has been registered with the Florida Department of State and since 2011 has operated a nationwide online “yellow pages” business, has had a lawsuit filed against them by the Florida state attorney general’s office, citing violations of the state’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, according to reports.
The Attorney General's office alleges that Yellow Pages United has been deceiving consumers nationwide into paying a fee of approximately $800 annually for a listing in an "obscure, little-used online telephone directory," one that automatically renews every single year. Since beginning this practice in 2001, the AG's office says, Yellow Pages United has received numerous complaints – totaling at nearly 1,900 – that have been submitted not only to the Attorney General's office, but also the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau, and numerous other agencies, both Federal and local. The majority of the complaints range from issues with Yellow pages United's marketing, billing, and collection practices, according to the lawsuit.
The Attorney General's office alleges that Yellow Pages United has been deceiving consumers nationwide into paying a fee for a listing in what they say is an "obscure, little-used online telephone directory."
Allegedly, Yellow Pages United acquired the names and addresses of numerous consumers from public records and other sources, after which they sent them marketing materials for their business directory listings via unsolicited direct mail solicitations. Consumers are then hoodwinked and pressured, using a variety of deceptive in misleading tactics, to fill out the solicitations and return them to Yellow Pages United, after which they would be sent fraudulent invoices that they would be instructed to pay via credit card or check, according to the AG's office.
Yellow Pages United puts up a legitimate front by using the common and diluted term “Yellow Pages” and featuring the well-known yet [un-trademark-able] “walking fingers” logo in an 'attempt', the AG’s offices alleges, to make themselves appear as actual representatives of the “real” Yellow Pages. However, instead of their directory listings appearing in a legitimate Yellow Pages directory, Yellow Pages United were actually posting the businesses directory listing on their own obscure site and billing victims approximately $800 annually for that service, or lack thereof. If a customer refused to pay Yellow Pages United for their listing once they opted in, aggressive collection procedures were then used in order to bully the victims into paying, according to the AG's office.
The lawsuit brought about by the Florida Attorney General seeks to stop Yellow Pages United from perpetrating their alleged deceptive practices, and to render all contracts the company has with consumers null and void. In addition, the AG is demanding that Yellow Pages United repay its victims restitution for any fees fraudulently collected on previous occasions. The suit also seeks civil penalties against in the amount of $10,000 for each victim of their alleged deceptive practices; that amount goes up to $15,000 in any instance in which a senior citizen, disabled person, or US military member was a victim, according to reports.
NEW YORK - The communications ministry of Japan has reacted to fears that the country will run out of 11-digit telephone numbers by 2022 by approving the creation of 10 billion 14-digit phone numbers, a move that has already been approved by the county’s three major mobile device carriers. The new numbers, according to reports, should be introduced by the end of 2021.
The rapid adoption of “Internet of Things” devices, which require their own contact phone numbers in Japan, has done a great deal to exhaust the country supply of 11-digit phone numbers in the country. File photo: Pixabay.
A number of factors, including the impending roll-out of Japan's new 5G Network in 2020, has attributed to an increase in devices with connectivity that will require a slew of new phone numbers. The rapid adoption of “Internet of Things” devices, which require their own contact phone numbers in Japan, has done a great deal to exhaust the country supply of 11-digit phone numbers in the country.
The new phone numbers, which start with the prefix “020,” were introduced initially at the start of 2017 to exclusively accommodate Internet of Things devices. 80 million “020” numbers have been assigned to Internet of Things devices as of the end of March 2019, but with the impending exhaustion of the current 11-digit telephone number system in Japan, officials have created 10 billion more “020” numbers with the intention that they would now be spread between both Internet of Things devices and traditional phone numbers.
The Internet of Things is the extension of internet connectivity into physical devices and everyday objects. Embedded with electronics, internet connectivity, and other forms of hardware, these devices can communicate and interact with other devices over the internet, and they can be remotely monitored and controlled. Typically, the technology is most synonymous with the concept of the “smart home,” covering devices and items such as lighting fixtures, thermostats, home security systems, cameras, and other home appliances that can be controlled via devices such as smartphones and smart speakers, such as Amazon's Alexa device.
Currently, the 11-digit phone number system in Japan supports prefixes beginning with “080,” “090,” and “070,” but the country, ever at the forefront of technological innovation, has been one of the leading embracers of Internet of Things devices and smartphone tech in general. With that being the case, the fact that the island nation is rapidly exhausting its supply of phone numbers is hardly surprising.
In fact, Japan is not the only country facing the issue of needing more phone numbers as technology becomes more prevalent in everyday life. In the United Kingdom, for example, in 2014 callers in certain areas had to start including a 5-digit area code prefix whenever they made a call – even if it was local – after the pool of existing phone numbers began to run out. However, as the country moves more towards IP-based telephone networks, the UK's national telecom regulator has begun mulling over the possibility of dropping area codes entirely.
As Internet of Things devices began interfacing more and more in terms of connectivity with smartphone devices, more and more phone numbers have been required to meet the needs of this technological union. In fact, by the end of 2020, experts estimate that there will be at least 50 billion linked devices worldwide, with the global Internet of Things market value projected to reach $7.1 trillion.
The concept of a network of smart devices, however, is not brand-new; the idea was discussed as early as 1982, with a modified Coke vending machine at Carnegie Mellon University becoming the first Internet-connected appliance, able to report its inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold or not. Today, a growing portion of Internet of Things devices are created for consumer use, including connected vehicles, home automation, and wearable technology, such as the popular FitBit activity tracker.
NEW YORK - Despite the efforts of time, technology, and progress to finally do away with them, the Yellow Pages may be making a comeback, albeit in a very different – and complicated – form; a digital one that could connect participating companies in a truly revolutionary way utilizing an emerging technology initially created to govern the use of so-called cryptocurrency that has now expanded to become much more.
Blockchain was invented under the name Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency known as bitcoin. File photo: Pixabay.
A project known as the “Unbounded Registry,” which boasts the involvement of several high-profile companies including IBM, has been working on a platform that could be best described as a “catalog” comprised of “blockchains” and blockchain-based businesses.
Blockchain was invented by a person – or possibly a group of people – under the name “Satoshi Nakamoto” in 2008 to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency known as bitcoin. However, in recent years, blockchain use has expanded to other areas of business. This may sound complicated, but essentially a blockchain is a growing list of records – called “blocks” – which are linked using cryptography; this is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties. Each “block” contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of the data, and for use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol that handles communication and validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires consensus of the network majority.
While this may not sound like an effective means to construct a business directory in an environment that would require some degree of flexibility, the project has stated that the way they're constructing their catalog would allow users to interact and transact in a way that would allow them to grow and change as needed. The project is said to interoperate with all of today's popular distributed ledger technologies, with the project being characterized as the “Yellow Pages of the Blockchain.”
Unlike typical Yellow Page directories, this particular project will require members to apply to join the registry due to the heavy permissions involved; non-members will not have access due the sensitive information being brandied about between users. For companies and organizations that are members, however, the advantages when to comes to communicating and conducting business are said to be numerous.
It is currently not known the specific criteria required for becoming part of the catalog, the specific types of blockchains that will be allowed, or how a given blockchain can incorporate itself into the catalog, but if this is to be a comprehensive project it would obviously make sense that it would allow as many blockchains – and companies, of course – as possible to join.
The blockchain catalog, if it comes to fruition, would centrally allow all participants to interact and collaborate digitally, establishing a shared, immutable record of all transactions, addresses, contact information, and more, all in real-time. Records can be easily digitized and exchanged and will be backed by a secure system with strict import and export clearance. Think of it as a “Super Yellow Pages” that would allow participating companies to not only identify purveyors of goods and services that they need, but also allow participants to share information as goods move through supply chains. And as this will all be done within a digital context, the process will go a long way towards reducing the cost of paperwork as well, which many companies note is one of the costliest aspects of conducting business in many ways.
The only drawback that may prevent some companies from wanting to get involved in this endeavor is the fact that all participants would have to share their data on common platforms. This transparency, while very advantageous and desirable in many ways, could also drive off entities and organizations who wish to keep the details of certain transactions under wraps; a very understandable concern in today’s cutthroat business world.
Time will only tell if this intriguing – and complicated – blockchain version of the Yellow Pages will bear fruit, or fade away into obscurity if it is not refined and adopted by the business community as a whole.
