Smartphones have revolutionized our lives, but we’ve also lost a lot. What have we gained and what have we sacrificed in the smartphone age?
The 21st century, especially since 2010, can rightly be called the “age of the smartphone,” with these palm-sized devices becoming more and more dominant by the day. In this article, we’re going to give you the information you need to understand most, if not all, of the ins and outs of smartphones.
In this blog post, we will first cover the concept, history, and objective knowledge of smartphones. Then, we’ll dive into the details of what smartphones have brought us in the 21st century and what they have taken away.
To get a sense of what a smartphone is, let’s start with the encyclopedia definition: “Smartphone; a mobile phone, a device with a miniaturized operating system of a PC, plus hardware and software modules for wireless telephony.” In other words, it’s a computer small enough to fit in your hand and a cell phone that functions as both. But can you define your smartphone in 2025 in this one sentence? In fact, the first cell phones that functioned as computers weren’t as big as you might think, but rather had a few minor functions such as sending faxes and checking email, address books, calculators, and world time. As you’ll see later in the history of smartphones, cell phones with this level of functionality have been around since the mid-20th century. So who and when did the concept of a modern smartphone with iOS and an app store, the first thing we think of when we hear the word “smartphone”, come to mind? It was Apple, better known as Steve Jobs, in 2007. Apple launched the iPhone, combining the existing iPod, cell phone, and computer. The iPhone had a modern UI, a touchscreen and an OS with multi-touch gestures, GPS, and most importantly, an app store, iOS. This spurred a rush of app developers to create apps, allowing consumers to add and delete tons of features to personalize their experience. Thus, after the iPhone was released, the Spring and Autumn War of smartphones based on these useful features began. In contrast, phones before that were called “feature phones” to distinguish them.
To understand the history of smartphones, let’s go back to their predecessors, PDA phones. PDA stands for personal digital assistant, a term that refers to a small handheld notebook with a touchscreen that was around in the early 1990s. PDAs had a more clerical nature, managing personal schedules, and this, combined with cell phones, led to the introduction of IBM’s Simon in 1992. Unlike most analog cell phones of the time, which could only make phone calls, the Simon was considered cutting-edge for its time, with an address book, world time, calculator, and notepad. The line between PDAs and smartphones was still blurry at this point, but four years later, Nokia introduced the Nokia Communicator line of smartphones. The Nokia 9210 was the first to feature a color screen and an open operating system, opening a new chapter in the mobile phone market. From this point on, PDAs and smartphones definitely took different paths, and many of the functions of PDAs were absorbed by smartphones, and people naturally stopped using PDAs. In the mid-2000s, when the overseas market was launching cell phones one after another, Apple introduced the iOS-based iPhone, which, as described above, established the concept of a high-end smartphone once and for all. After launching the iPhone, which served as an all-around device, Apple later released the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and now the iPhone 16. In Korea, the abolition of mandatory Wi-Fi in 2009 made it much easier to adopt smartphones, and eight smartphones were released that year. Then, in the 2010s, smartphones became more popular, and unlimited data plans and LTE networks were established. Once the system was organized, smartphone adoption spread very quickly and widely compared to other countries. According to Statistics Korea, as of 2024, 72.85 million people have a mobile phone subscription, and 55 million of them are smartphone subscribers.
The spread of smartphones has greatly improved the quality of life for users. Many tasks that were once only possible by sitting in front of a computer can now be done from the palm of your hand. More than just a convenience, it has made it possible to work efficiently, regardless of time and location. Smartphone applications have also revolutionized all aspects of life, including healthcare, financial services, education, shopping, and more. Healthcare applications, in particular, have opened up a new paradigm of healthcare for many people by allowing users to monitor and manage their health in real time.
Now that you have a general idea of what smartphones are, let’s talk about the impact they have had on our daily lives. First, let’s start with the positive side of smartphones: thanks to smartphones, people now have access to the vast amount of information on the internet anytime, anywhere. Even before smartphones were commercialized, computers allowed us to get information from books and other people to a certain extent, but now we are completely free of the constraints of having a computer and a wired cable. We now have the ability to stay informed about politics, news, geography, food, weather, and more on the go. This is a very important change, and it has led to information providers increasingly updating their information more quickly.
It has also greatly increased the convenience of work and education. To give you an idea of how smartphones have made work easier, let’s say you’re Mr. B., who is in charge of commercial affairs at Company A. Mr. B uses his smartphone to handle many tasks. Using a video chat app on his smartphone, Mr. B meets with important foreign buyers today. During lunch, a message from a coworker on his smartphone immediately alerts him to a change in meeting location, so he’s not late for work. And on the way home from work, I watch a video app on the subway to learn about a new project, saving a lot of time. As you can see, smartphones have made life much easier and more efficient within a company or government agency. This is why some companies even give them to their employees for free. There’s also a huge educational aspect. Students can download lectures and test questions directly from the internet and study them without a computer, and the e-book feature allows people to save money on paper while gaining a lot of knowledge.
People also get a lot of pleasure from playing media files, playing games, and socializing on their smartphones. Easy-to-play games are now very popular, and social networking systems such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and many others are becoming more active thanks to smartphones. The world has become a smaller place with smartphones, with Facebook and Twitter available everywhere, and there are virtually no physical distances.
The popularization of smartphones has brought about major changes not only in our daily lives, but also in culture, economy, and society as a whole. Cultural consumption patterns are also changing as a variety of cultural content, including movies, music, and literature, are easily accessible through smartphones. For example, we can watch movies anytime and anywhere on our smartphones without having to go to the theater, and music streaming services have made it possible to enjoy a wide variety of music without having to buy records. These changes have enriched consumers’ cultural lives and created new opportunities for content creators.
On the other hand, we can’t ignore the negative effects of excessive smartphone use. Many people have become overly dependent on their smartphones, leading to a variety of health problems, including difficulty concentrating, sleeping, and neck and shoulder pain. Additionally, smartphone addiction has become a social problem, and various measures are being discussed to address it. It’s important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of smartphone use and utilize them appropriately.
So, let’s take a look at what smartphones have done away with in our society. First, from an economic perspective, analog and digital devices that used to do what smartphones can do now have seen their sales drop dramatically since 2010, when smartphones became commercially available. Experts predict that MP3 players, PMPs, PDAs, dictionaries, e-books, digital cameras, handheld games, navigation systems, DMBs, and many other electronic devices will be considered near-antiques by the next generation in about 10 years.
In today’s article, we looked at the dictionary definition of smartphones and how the iPhone in 2007 ushered in the concept of smartphones as we know it today. In the history section, we saw how many smartphones, starting with PDA phones in the early 1990s, opened a new chapter of the era, and in Korea, the smartphone craze that changed our lives has continued since 2010. In the Impact of Smartphones section, we were introduced to convenient business processing, different education methods, and cultural life.
“Anything can change. The smartphone revolution is just beginning,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. From the notebook PDA to the current OS-based iPhone and Galaxy, Apple’s smartphones have mesmerized not only 40.5 million users in Korea but also users around the world with their convenient features. Just like the steam engine, which had a major impact on the industrial revolution in the second wave, smartphones are contributing to the change of the times in a world where the third wave is still underway. Therefore, it would be beneficial for those of us who are living in this era to have organized and accurate information about smartphones.
