Content consumer or producer? Tools of the trade.

Smart phones and to a lesser degree tablets are a core part of modern life today. We go everywhere with them. Mines on me 24/7. Its an indispensible tool to stay in touch with people both work related and personal. Smart phones are also the jack of most trades tool. They can take decent pictures, the digital interface "keyboard" is pretty decent. They can play music, display videos, connect seemlessly with apps that make life easier or more interesting. They really are, if you think on it ,the perfect tool for consumption of data. Your phones allow you to read content fairly well. Want to.know how to do something...watch a you tube video. Want to know how to cook a dish...again theres videos or websites on it. Want to know how to solve a Discus problem...no worries.
browse away. The strength of a mobile device like a smart phone is not just that its portable...its that it enables us to be a nation and world of consummers. Consumption is generally much easier than production though, so a vast number of people today are consummers, just as they were in the hey day of print media like Newspaper.

What about laptops and desktops? I know people that don't even use these anymore. For them the mobile devices suffice.Laptops and Desktops are fairly good at connecting to social media, they can't use apps in the same sense as mobile devices though. You can still consume to your hearts content... watching videos is actually better in most cases on these non-mobile devices. But they aren't portable. You aren't going to whip out your pc in the doctor's office and check the latest tweet storm or the weather forecast.You can't really take it to dinner either and even laptops are bulky for car trips. So why use one anyway?

Most people probably don't need non-mobile devices today or rarely do. Where they excel is content creation. You can't beat a real keyboard to type a long article on or develop a website with. You wont be making any high quality digital images with your phone. Take a dslr picture though, pop it into a good pc and hi res monitor and you have magic in the making. Write a book on your phone? no thanks! Keyboards are better for that. What about data storage and manipulation? Again' non-mobile devices beat phones and tablets just in shear computational capacity,processors, and storage space.

You can be a consummer of data well enough with non-mobile devices like laptops and pcs. Mobile devices take the award for that. But to create/produce content the lap top and pc are boss.

Though I have gotten proficient at posting even long posts here with my smart phone I still prefer my keyboard and a large screen of a monitor. It may not be as convenient as the technological wonder my smart phone is but its easier to create content on.Its also more ergonomic. I wouldnt be surprised if down the road a bit we see a huge spike in injuries related to smart phone use. A chiropracter I met once said hes already seeing alot of injuries attributed to posture and mobile devices. Im pretty sure carpal tunnel injuries will show up too as teens grow. To be fair he saw a fair share of posture related injuries for pc /laptop users that did not use ergonomic setups.

So how about you. Consummer or Producer (creator)? Do you use your mobile phone now exclusively? Do you even own non-mobile devices like pcs and laptops. If you do what do you use them for?

al

ps... this post was created on my smart phone....but would have been much easier on my laptop.:)

I have a mini iPad. It’s easy to carry, but I’m not able to use it anywhere unless I’m at a place that has free wi fi. It’s an old model that takes crappy pics, but I’m hoping when the new one comes out (Sept?) they will have a better camera. Funny, my iPad was a Xmas gift from my husband that I “liked” but now I use it for both consumption and production almost exclusively.
Patty

I was a power laptop user for a long time, having moved from a desktop (yes, I remember when the internet was CompuServe forums). Recently, I have moved back to a powerful desktop unit (iMac) and my travel units being an iPad and iPhone. Very content with this setup. Do I consider myself a consumer or producer? If writing and research are producing then I am a producer. I do not write content on my iPhone. However, I do consume (like this forum) on both my desk and iPad.

Frank

My desk top got replaced by my laptop. I no longer carry the laptop on trips, but bring my $25 Kindel tablet, if the tablet gets lost it's no big lost. I always carry a
smart for quick response.

Cliff

As far I am concerned you can not produce anything worth while on a mobile device. In my working life I produced lots of documents (mainly in word) and wrote software using a variety of text editors, debugged software using an SDK (Software Develop Kit) etc etc. Today I mostly play with photos which I still do on a laptop.

For the NADA show I updated the 2014 power point slide show for the 2018 show. Ricardo and I will be using my laptop for editing fish photos and placing the photo into the slide show for the awards banquet. Can you do that on a mobile device, maybe but painful.

Mobile devices are great for consumption but when you need to do something real...go get yourself a real computer.
Pat

I could not get along without my desk top with it's large monitor. I could write a dang novel on this thing if I had a novel in me. I have a smart phone but I can't write on that. I check my email on it if I'm expecting something important. I check the forum from time to time on it. I don't understand facebook. Everyone is so superficial there. "fiends" on facebook aren't real friends. They're pay pretend friends.

I have a laptop. I didn't even have that until 8 years ago and I only got one because I can no longer drive and need to order supplies online. I do not have a smart phone. I have a landline. I like peace and quiet and living in the real world. I can disappear if I like. I go to the park or out in the woods and see people on their phones instead of enjoying the scenery. I guess that I am just an old dinosaur.

Chris

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scribbles

I have a laptop. I didn't even have that until 8 years ago and I only got one because I can no longer drive and need to order supplies online. I do not have a smart phone. I have a landline. I like peace and quiet and living in the real world. I can disappear if I like. I go to the park or out in the woods and see people on their phones instead of enjoying the scenery. I guess that I am just an old dinosaur.

Chris

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Chris its great seeing you around here still! Its been a long time! If you are an old dinosaur then I guess I have a fair amount of Dino in me as well! And whats not Dino is bird!

Glad to see you!
Al

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brewmaster15

Chris its great seeing you around here still! Its been a long time! If you are an old dinosaur then I guess I have a fair amount of Dino in me as well! And whats not Dino is bird!

Glad to see you!
Al

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Thanks Al! Life has been busy but I still manage to pop in here every once in awhile. It is too great of a website and community to stay away too long.

Chris

My desk top got dismantled and stored in a garage due to a lack of space in my apartment couple of years ago. Laptop we got back then as a substitute for our desktop has gradually lost the battle too , with the smartphones and tablets .
Now we barely use our laptop and we spend a lot of our time " over consuming " the data on the net and the social services . I try to interact and create stuff via my smartphone , but it's possibilities are limited over the desktop when it comes to creating content . I also believe that this evolution in information technology is slowly turning us in consumers and spectators rather than creators and participants.
I agree with Chris too that the privacy and the piece of mind enjoying the real life we have lost with the cellphones is a big price that we pay for its commodities.