This blog post explores how the emergence and development of smartphones have integrated into modern daily life, driving technological and social change.
The smartphone stands as one of the 21st century’s most significant inventions, already deeply ingrained in our society. Modern individuals rely on smartphones to such an extent that they begin and end their daily lives with them. This article focuses on how smartphones first appeared in the world and the impact they have had on society since their emergence.
As the name suggests, the primary function of a smartphone is that of a ‘telephone’. In 1973, the American telecommunications company Motorola first introduced a handheld mobile phone to the world. Over the subsequent 20 to 30 years, a world arrived where citizens in economically developed nations could carry their own personal mobile phones. By 2003, considered the dawn of the smartphone era, personal computers were already widely adopted. Yet people desired a computer they could carry everywhere. At that time, South Korea’s mobile phone penetration rate had surpassed 60%, making the idea of integrating a computer into the phones people always carried a natural one for anyone to conceive.
Even before 2003, attempts existed to introduce computer concepts into mobile phones, such as PDAs or Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which were similar in concept to today’s smartphones. However, few companies innovatively introduced the new realm of smartphones to the world. Those companies were ‘Google’ and ‘Apple’. Generally, we classify smartphones based on their operating system (OS). An operating system is the program that translates the electrical signals used by the smartphone’s hardware into human-understandable graphics or text, enabling various essential functions. Examples for computers include Microsoft’s Windows series or Apple’s Macintosh. Since smartphones are essentially computers, an OS is indispensable. Many companies threw down the gauntlet during the early days of smartphones to dominate this market.
Android, an IT company based in Silicon Valley, initially aimed to develop an operating system for digital cameras. However, the developers belatedly realized the digital camera market wasn’t as large as they had anticipated. They pivoted, shifting their focus to creating an operating system for a new type of mobile device. This was an era before the smartphones we know today existed. Thanks to their forward-thinking choice, Android was able to dominate the smartphone operating system market. Of course, their path wasn’t smooth. Although the smartphone operating system was complete, smartphones themselves appeared later, creating a gap that Android couldn’t withstand financially. Google acquired it, and subsequently, Android leveraged its high compatibility to become the operating system of choice for numerous smartphone manufacturers.
iOS, Apple’s creation, held a 11.7% market share as of 2016, securing a fixed consumer base and ranking second in the operating system market. iOS was born from the collaborative development efforts of the team behind Apple’s iPod MP3 player and the team behind Apple’s Macintosh computer operating system, leveraging their successful Macintosh experience. Designed exclusively for Apple’s iPhone series, iOS prioritized building its own ecosystem over compatibility, emphasizing external design aesthetics like sophistication and simplicity in operating system architecture. By appealing to these emotional aspects of consumers, the iPhone secured a loyal fanbase.
While the software background of smartphone operating systems is as described above, the development of hardware has a somewhat more turbulent history. Key components in smartphones include DRAM, processor chips (CPUs), displays, and batteries, with additional components like cameras and Bluetooth. DRAM refers to the amount of data a computer can hold in memory at once. It differs from storage devices like SSDs and indicates how much data a smartphone can process simultaneously while operating. Larger DRAM capacity facilitates running heavier programs, such as video players or gaming applications. Advancements in DRAM technology are linked to nanotechnology. The performance of DRAM is determined by how small the storage units can be made within chips smaller than the smartphone itself. Currently, widely used DRAM capacities range from 2GB to 8GB. Such performance levels were unimaginable just a decade ago. Over the past decade, DRAM capacity has increased approximately 1000-fold, while processing speed has increased about 200-fold, demonstrating significant advancement. Simply put, if a smartphone with today’s performance existed ten years ago, it would have required a DRAM chip 1000 times larger in physical size than current ones. DRAM continues to evolve today, focusing on increasing capacity and accelerating processing speeds.
Displays, meanwhile, have advanced with LED as the core technology, emphasizing cleaner and more natural color reproduction. Screen sizes gradually grew, finding their optimal point around 5 inches—a size suitable for one-handed use. Once the size stabilized, innovative displays began to emerge. Examples include curved displays like Samsung’s Galaxy Edge, which extend the screen to the sides, and Xiaomi’s Mi Mix, which eliminates the bezel and fills the entire front with a display. The battery is also a crucial component. Almost all smartphones use lithium-ion batteries, but this type has the drawback of not offering particularly high capacity. Current smartphones consume enormous amounts of energy to maintain bright screens and run various programs. Even if performance is sufficient, without power, it’s just a useless machine. Unlike stationary computers, smartphones require frequent charging, and consumers naturally prefer longer charging intervals. However, this is a difficult problem to solve without revolutionary battery technology, so users are circumventing it with solutions like power banks. Fuel cells are being researched as next-generation batteries, but they are not yet at the commercialization stage.
We’ve briefly covered the smartphone’s software (the operating system) and hardware. Next, let’s explore how smartphones have become integrated into people’s lives. We’ve already experienced several changes since entering the mobile phone era. From alarms waking people early in the morning to calling or texting distant contacts. In the 2000s, cameras were added to mobile phones, and people began capturing moments of their lives through photos and videos using their phones. However, before smartphones, sharing photos with others was very costly, and shared photos were often low-resolution, failing to convey the vivid experience of the photographer. This situation changed dramatically with advances in camera technology and the advent of smartphones. Smartphones equipped with large storage capacities and high-quality cameras enabled people to freely capture high-resolution photos and videos. Sharing these became effortless through two key applications: chat apps and social networking services (SNS).
Previous mobile phone users relied on ‘text messages’ for simple communication. The limitations of an 80-character limit and the inability to send anything but text, unless additional fees were paid, were completely resolved by the emergence of chat apps on smartphones. People could now freely share their thoughts without being constrained by character limits. Due to these advantages, users began using chat apps like ‘KakaoTalk’ and ‘Line’ instead of text messages. The dependence on these types of apps was indirectly proven by the recent September Gyeongju earthquake. On the day of the earthquake, KakaoTalk message volume soared past the daily average of 3 billion to reach 8 billion. Server issues, unable to handle the increased data traffic, caused a disruption lasting about two hours, during which KakaoTalk messaging was not functioning smoothly. This incident alone showed how deeply chat apps are integrated into people’s daily lives.
Next is the emergence of SNS, which completely transformed how people communicate online. SNS, short for social networking service, is less a simple app and more a new system brought about by the smartphone market. SNS encompasses various sites like ‘Twitter’, ‘Facebook’, ‘Instagram’, and ‘Tumblr’, all sharing the core concept of connecting people. When you ‘follow’ someone on SNS, you receive their posts, photos, and other information in real time. If you react to this content, such as liking it, that information is then relayed to the people who follow you. Through this web-like social network, information posted by one person spreads rapidly to many others. Statistics show that a post receiving 1,000 ‘likes’ can reach as many as 50,000 people. This new communication method transformed existing community sites, which were primarily for sharing personal daily life, into a much larger marketplace.
The role of smartphones in SNS is that they make sharing information possible anytime, anywhere. For example, if someone eats a delicious meal at a restaurant and shares their positive experience on SNS, dozens nearby and hundreds farther away can see that post. Among them, some will likely visit that restaurant. If that person also gives the restaurant a positive review, this behavior repeats, spreading information about the restaurant to even more people. Countless businesses have achieved significant success through this. In other words, what used to be ‘word of mouth’ passed from person to person can now happen without the mouth, simply through people’s thumbs. This is far faster than how rumors spread traditionally and has tremendous reach.
This ripple effect holds significant political implications. Examining the current U.S. presidential election reveals that analyzing big data from social media is one method used to gauge public opinion. In the era before smartphones, people would sit at home on their computers, typing out their political views online. But the combination of smartphones and social media now allows people to react instantly to various political events anytime, anywhere. It is clear that there are also cases where the advantages of SNS are exploited, hindering its positive functions. Unfair practices occur, such as operating organized ‘like’ factories using smartphones to deliberately boost companies that have paid for advertising. Various rumors also run rampant on SNS.
Meanwhile, smartphones have made it possible to perform tasks that were previously done on PCs at home or in the office while on the go, such as on buses or subways. Thanks to this device, which can be considered a small computer, people can conduct banking transactions anytime they need to, without having to physically visit a bank or sit in front of a computer. Recently, among younger generations, a form of Dutch treat payment is actively occurring where, when multiple people need to settle a bill, one person pays first, and then the others transfer money to that person. This is made possible by the banking apps of various banks on smartphones or dedicated small-amount transaction apps like ‘Toss’. Smartphones have also begun supporting PDF and HWP files, which were previously only accessible on computers. This allows office workers to continue their work on their smartphones even before arriving at the office or after leaving work, effectively enhancing their work responsiveness. However, this phenomenon is a double-edged sword, creating a structure where modern people can never be truly free from work. It has even emerged as a new social issue that workplace freedom is disappearing as bosses constantly assign tasks through company group chats on messengers.
Thus, the downside is that ‘life-integrated computers’ like smartphones have connected modern daily life itself to a vast internet network, making it difficult to guarantee personal freedom unless individuals intentionally disconnect. However, if asked to choose between a world without smartphones and one with them, most people would naturally choose the latter. The undeniable benefits smartphones bring to our lives represent a new era in the information age. The various side effects smartphones bring can be sufficiently addressed through adjustments made by consensus among society’s members.