Mobile Me: My Mobile Diary (Part 3.3)
We live in a society where mobile phones have won a permanent place in our lives. Nowadays, they seem to have become a necessity for most people and especially for Millennials. Thus, it has been a very interesting task for us to explore the “relationship” that young people have with their mobile phones, in the framework of New Consuming Trends course of Panteion University, taught by our professor Mrs Betty Tsakarestou. During this course, our team participated on a research project called Mobile Me and You concerning mobile collaborative consumption and sharing economy that are now on the rise. My team specifically chose to focus our part of the research on the use of instant messaging apps.
The first step on our project was to observe how each one of us, individually, uses their phone and to present a Mobile Me story. As far as I am concerned, I spend almost my whole day occupied with my mobile and it’s for sure the first thing I grab when I open my eyes, a lot of times because I have to switch off my alarm! The time I do it, I activate the WiFi and answer to my messages, scroll on Instagram and most of the times I put on a song or a video in Youtube to listen as I am getting ready.
I don’t want to learn my screen time, because, for sure, it would be a lot! Actually I have the WiFi active to my phone, almost the whole day, even if I’m on my laptop, because it’s easier for me to answer my messages from there and I really have a lot of messages during the day! The most important apps for me are Messenger, Youtube, Instagram and OASA Telematics. Messenger, because it’s the main pain I have for communication, Youtube because I really like to watch videos and listening to music and Instagram, because I love the content that the pages I follow have. OASA Telematics is the app for bus checking in Athens and I use it almost everyday to go anywhere.
Recently I added Netflix in my mobile apps and it starts to become one of my favorites too! It’s very useful for me, since I’m on my phone most of the times to watch episodes from there, especially if I’m in a bus or the subway. Another app that I really like is Pinterest, but I only use when I want more specific ideas like a haircut or a nail art. When I can manage to have free time and don’t know what to do, I have a mind game called Skillz, which helps me kill my time, but it is also train my mind. Viber is an Instant Messaging App that I have only to communicate with one of my best friends, because she isn’t in any other social media or apps and What’s Up is the app that I can check my data and how much free calling time I have. For transportation, I have downloaded another 2 apps: BEAT, I use it to call a taxi and another Buses app, to see the official buses’ routes.
All these apps are really useful for me during my day. Instant Messaging Apps are helping me keep in contact with all of my friends and family, even if they are far away from me and I have many group chats for academic projects, that all team members have to communicate everyday to get work done. It’s a quick and fast way to communicate with a lot of people, without having to gather. Even if I have a Facebook account, I haven’t downloaded the app, because I feel that I don’t need it and if I need to check something, I’ll connect via Google Chrome from my phone.
Instagram is my favorite social media app, because I find it very creative and I follow a lot of influencers about makeup and fashion, in which I am very interested in, I get ideas from them to improve my makeup and clothing and I get very inspired too. Moreover, I’ve downloaded an app called SquarePhoto, so as to edit my pictures to fit perfectly on Instagram when I want to upload them. I don’t have any other editing apps, because I tend not to edit my photos a lot, but if I want to do it sometime, I’ll use my mobile’s editor (HUAWEI).
Other apps that are also useful and were already installed in my mobile are Notes, Google Play Store, Alarm, Calendar and Voice Recorder. I tend to use these apps quite a lot in my everyday life, for obvious reasons, except for Voice Recorder, which I use to record something for a project, like a voice over. Another thing that I really love about my mobile is that it has a lot of different and creative themes to customize my front pages and apps’ icons. It is very fun and I change them depending on the season (e.g. on Christmas I choose a Christmas theme).
I have to admit that I’m using my mobile for everything all day long and it’s not just a part of my hand, but of my mind. I can’t stand when I don’t have it around, even just to unlock it constantly to check anything. It really helps me in my everyday life, but I think that I’m overusing it sometimes. I’m, surely, addicted to it, but there are not just the things that I have behind my screen, but it’s what’s around it too! What do I mean? My phone case has liquid glitter and iridescent stars in it and I spend hours and hours just by watching and playing with it! That’s another thing that keeps me really attached with my mobile!
One day I hope that I’ll stop being that addicted to my mobile and that I won’t need it that much in my everyday life, but this will only stay a dream if I don’t start trying to do it. To be honest, I don’t know if I am ready to do it, but there are times that I feel so bored and overdosed of everything that has to do with my mobile and I don’t even want to see it. But then it comes, the next day and I love it again…
These interviews were only two of the ten that we conducted for this project. If you found them interesting you can continue your reading on the other articles of myself or the ones of my teammates Athena Styllou and elena kouki on the links below or visit our website https://mobileimapps.wixsite.com/website .
