Are You Using Your Smartphone Like a TV?

Here you can be the presenter.

“An old television set near a dilapidated wall” by Sven Scheuermeier on Unsplash

I did the math, my Facebook comments are less than 10 per year.

Does it mean that I don’t use Facebook a lot? No.

I use Facebook every day, but just to read what others wrote, and it is the case for so many other apps. Facebook for relatives’ news, Twitter for public news, Youtube for videos, Spotify for Music, Instagram for photos, Kindle for books, and other apps for sports, weather, …etc.

To sum up, I press a button and consume information. I never interact with it.
No like, no comment, no evaluation, no reaction, no sign of life.

One of the drawbacks of TV was that lack of interaction, where you have no tool to express yourself about the programs, then we found calls, SMS, email, auditions, polls… that make TV communication works in the two directions.

With smartphone and infinite information, I feel like I’m using small-size TV.

But there are some exceptions, mostly related to blogging, like Medium. I’m not saying that we can’t do the same with traditional medias like Facebook or Twitter, but I feel that here there is less distraction, less noise, and less ads.

Here I feel that I’m invited to join the discussion, while in other apps, I’m a source of data for advertisers and analysts, to decide what products to show me later, between two posts of my friends.

And you, are you using your smartphone like a TV?