Along with a large portion of the world's population, I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the iPhone 5. Our society is enamored with cell phones in general, but Apple took the devotion to handheld life devices to a whole 'nother level. If you live in a Westernized portion of the world and the iPhone concept is foreign to you, you clearly live under a rock. Imagine, however, how strange it would have appeared to people in Elizabethan times, for example. Attempting to work through such a conversation in one's head is evidence enough of the immense growth the world has experienced. What's especially amazing about the iPhone is that it's available to people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Even if you can't afford one, it's likely that you've touched one. This was absolutely not true for luxuries in the past. A peasant would never know what a silk robe of a royal felt like. It's incredible that something as fascinating and complex as an iPhone is available to such a breadth of people.
The iPhone also hammers home the point of intensive growth. People are becoming richer because it's feasible for them to do so. As their individual wealth grows, so does their attachment to material items. This is clear because the market for complicated devices is worth millions if not billions of dollars. We truly only need the call function on a cell phone, but instead our societal and economic growth has allowed for the ability to hurl virtual birds at virtual pigs with the touch of a finger. Even the smartest scientist in the past couldn't have conceived such an idea, and would probably find our reality laughably impossible.
Good work. All the way back in 2000 having a cell phone was a sign of snobbishness and was looked down on as an unneeded accessory and a sign of elitism. People tended to hide the fact that they owned a cell phone in order to not be seen in this view. Now, if you are a parent and don't own a cell phone or if you do not get a cell phone for your child people look at you as being neglectful and ask how you could subject your child to the dangers of not having a phone. It's funny how social norms changes over time isn't it...
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