Gadgetory

do you think your phone is a tool or do you think it's an instrument now I know it sounds weird but think about it when you go out to buy a new phone you're like I really wish you took better pictures and so you go get a thing that solves that problem better than the thing you had before but what if that's all wrong you're thinking of your phone like this thing like a hammer but what if it's not like that what if it's more like missing an instrument I've been obsessed with phones for like 20 years actually Oh God twenty-two years my first phone was a mountain dew extreme Network pager when I was in high school okay okay anyway I've been obsessed with phones for twenty years I've been writing about them for like 15 years and in that time I have learned a lot about phone specs the Snapdragon processor and Mei it's all that and color gamut and blob a lot of love I do believe that specs matter but I also think that we probably spend way too much time arguing about them specs make your phone a better tool if you've got I don't know a better camera it's going to take better photos but deal with a tool is you use it to solve a task and then you put it away and then you get a different tool to solve another task so the best hammer in the world isn't going to help you cut down a tree just like the best most beautiful screen in the world isn't going to help you if you drop your phone you might need a different tool for that so what you want to do when you're picking out a phone or any technology is don't think of it as just a single thing to solve a problem think it was something that you kind of need to have a relationship with look the tool thing it's not a very good metaphor but I think there's a better metaphor one that can help you have a actually good relationship with your phone and hell with most tech and that metaphor is one I said earlier think of your phone as a musical instrument I think the first thing that happens when you think about your phone as an instrument is that you tend to care about it more the way that a musician cares about their instrument it's not some foreign thing to you that's like being inflicted upon you it's actually something that you participate in that you actually enjoy using the first time you pick any musical instrument you suck at it I mean you are deeply deeply bad at playing that thing and you know what the same is true with phones you have to learn how to use it and you can get better with it over time so if it feels awkward and annoying to you you can just practice with it the other thing about instruments is you have to keep them in tune they don't just work all the time without a little bit of care and maintenance look at your storage if the thing seems slow maybe it's full look at your battery and we've learned with the iPhones that if the battery is kind of old and crappy the phone's gonna slow down I hate to say it but Android apps tend to have more crappy little tentacles that sneak out into the rest of the OS and getting rid of the weird crappy games that you downloaded this you maybe don't need just periodically cleaning stuff up can really help keep the thing running fast the other thing we can go back to what I was saying earlier about specs if you think of your phone as an instrument then specs sort of like I don't know it's weird is there such a thing as the best guitar there's lots of different kinds and they make different kinds of music so why should you be worried about necessarily having the quote-unquote best phone the truth is that there's really no such thing now if you're anything like me you're probably thinking you know this metaphor isn't that great it's kind of broken down actually yeah that's that's what metaphors do they they break down words have got a wide array of meaning so I don't know instruments can be used to just measure things and tools can be used to make beautiful amazing art are you gonna use your phone to just consume junk just endlessly scroll Twitter and feel bad about what your friends are doing on Instagram would you sit and listen to really crappy music that you hate know what you do on your phone should make you feel good or if it's a work stuff it should make you feel productive and here's maybe the most important point if you really think about your phone as an extension of your mind then the things you do on your phone are an extension of what you are and who you are the technology doesn't absolve you from your actions so if you're using your phone to leave hateful comments or say hateful things or just generally be terrible on the Internet that's you doing it it's not some separate thing you should use your phone to improve humanity not make it worse in the same way that a musician doesn't pick up a guitar to like make you feel like crap they do it to make music that makes people feel good the metaphor of an instrument is more useful because it makes you feel differently about the phone you should think differently about it or more importantly you should have a different attitude when you're using your phone as long as we're talking about metaphors and words and whatever here's one for you the phone it comes from the Greek for voice and it's for communicating with other people but more than other people it's for communicating with culture so when you play a game on your phone it's an instrument for experiencing a new kind of art and when you take a selfie with your phone it's an instrument for putting a picture of yourself out in the world phones are pieces of culture that also create culture if you treat your phone like a tool like a hammer you're just going to pound nails with it you're going to dehumanize the person on the other end of the phone but if you treat it like an instrument you're going to recognize that it creates culture that it has a place in our culture and so do you because that's what instruments do and I'm really curious you know this is my metaphor but maybe you have a better idea of how we should think about these phones so that they feel better in our lives please let me know down in the comments and we'll have a chat