A Nostalgic Walk to Smart Phones, the Internet and Advertisement

As a Generation X member, I grew up in a time when research meant spending countless hours at the library. I would have to walk to the floor where a cabinet housed rows and rows of index cards with every book in the library index. I had to learn how to use the Dewey Decimal System to locate the book or books needed to write the paper. Computers existed, but typewriters were still being used significantly. Moving forward, do you remember when AOL used to mail a promotional disk to your home, offering free hours of dial-up internet service? You had to have a working land phone line to access the Internet. Remember the computer speakers' crackling sound while trying to access the world wide web? Seems like eons ago, right?

In 1992 dial-up service was offered commercially; in 1993, the world wide web was available for everyone to use (Mccullough, 2018). This information system enabled people to access resources over the Internet. Remember the cartoon show the Jetsons? This cartoon not only predicted flying cars but was the first look at Zoom meetings over the Internet that we know today. Now some of up participate in more than five Zoom meetings daily. Wow!

I remember getting my first cell phone in high school. I was fifteen, and it was the year 1999. The cell phone I had was a Nokia, and not many of my friends' parents would get them one. I remember being on the phone for hours playing games like Snake. I also remember telling people to call me back after 9 pm when my minutes were free. None of that time then was spent accessing the Internet. That Nokia was not considered a smartphone. The first smartphone was created by IBM and sold by BellSouth in 1993 (Mccullough, 2018). Its features included a calculator and a calendar interface with a touchscreen. The craze took off, and look at us now. When was the last time you walked down the street, entered the grocery store, or walked down the hall to a meeting and noticed the person next to you not holding a cell phone? To see a person not having a cell phone is almost a thing of the past.

This short walk down memory lane has been fun and brings back some good times when things were less complex. Fun times like standing in line at the grocery store, thumbing through a magazine, and waiting on the newspaper delivery boy so you can read the comics. However, that brings me to the generation after me. People born in Generation Z were born from 1996 to 2012. This group of individuals is the most dependent upon the Internet and can be said to be the forerunner of technological use. They have lived their entire lives on some form of technology or the Internet.   

There are nearly 6.8 billion people in the world that own a smartphone (Alter, 2020). We use our phones for everything, like shopping, taking photos, uploading online content, communicating with family, friends, and coworkers, emailing, surfing various social media platforms, and researching information on the Internet. By 2025, it is reported that nearly 3.7 billion people will use their smartphones to access the web (Mccullough, 2018). This number doesn't even include those that use smartphones and other smart devices. When you think about how digital this is, it makes you wonder how will this digital access impact television and advertisement.   

Before streaming services came along, we would sit and watch a 30-minute or even 1-hour television show that would be interrupted every 15 minutes or so for a commercial break. We have grown accustomed to our favorite shows not being interrupted while streaming on Netflix, Hulu, or Disney Plus. How often do you surf your favorite online magazine or social media site without ad pop-ups? Almost always, an ad pops up when moving from one screen to the next. They have now included commercials or advertisements when scrolling on TikTok. Online advertising can be very cost-efficient and is a more straightforward method of reaching a targeted audience. That is not to say that television advertising does not have advantages. Marketing on social media platforms or the Internet enables immediate feedback on a company's or business's products or services. Consumers are able to express their opinions on brands by clicking like, commenting in real-time, or sharing the content for their following base to see. When one watches a television advertisement, depending on the generation, one has to make a mental note to patronize the highlighted company. People my age or those younger may immediately grab their smartphones, search for the company and place an online order. The television advertisement shown during certain shows is determined by which company paid for the spot. However, the Internet or advertising on social media is depicted by the viewers' choices, cookies, or a previous search. It is no coincidence that you see digital advertising after talking about something or searching for something on the world wide web. Personalized advertising is the result of cookies or IP addresses (Alter, 2020). The cookie I am referring to cannot be ingested. It is a text file in your browser that keeps track of your searched information. Think of your IP address as your home address; it tells or gives the location of where you are. The balance between the two informs advertisers. As spooky as it sounds, this advertising method reaches a larger targeted audience in a short time using less money.

It was fun going to the library. It was exhilarating to be one of the first at my high school to have a cell phone. It is convenient to be able to search for something immediately without having to leave the comforts of my warm bed. It is even more convenient to place an online order and pick it up a couple of hours later after ordering. But we must ask ourselves, with an ever-changing digital universe before us, what is next? What is there to look forward to beyond 5G networking? Will we become like the Jetsons using 6G to fly automated cars? How will smart homes become smarter?

This blog entry has been your nostalgic walk down memory lane; come back next week for my next post.

Alter, A. (2020). Irresitible. New York: Penguin.

Mccullough, B. (2018). How the Internet Happened; From Netscape to the iPhone. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.