16 Ways Smartphones Have Changed Our Lives

The dawn of instant everything

More than 16 years after the iPhone’s debut, what follows are 16 ways Apple’s phone and its Android rivals have altered our lives, mostly — but not always — for the better.

1. Information that’s immediate. Want to settle a bar bet, fact-check something on the spot or merely stay on top of the news?

The phone in your pocket is like carrying an encyclopedia. And depending on your tolerance for notifications, it can keep you in the loop in real time. Indeed, many of you are now perusing articles on the device, giving up newspapers and paper-based magazines and reading digital versions on your laptop computers less frequently.

2. Convenient cameras. It’s become a cliché: The best camera is the one that’s always with you, since you never know when a perfect photo op will present itself. You can snap with abandon, and smartphone cameras have improved dramatically through the years, especially on premium models. For the most part, stand-alone digital cameras are for photo buffs and professional photographers.

With variations by model, you can zoom in on distant subjects and objects, capture fine shots in near darkness sans flash, take portrait shots with the main subject in focus and the background blurred, and use fancy filters. Your ever-ready shooter also indirectly sired photo-centric Instagram.

3. Demise of the camcorder. Modern smartphones have retired many stand-alone consumer video cameras. Some let you go beyond high definition to capture ultra-high-definition 4K videos.

You can also employ slow-motion and time-lapse features and apply other cinematic and special effects. And if you love wildly popular TikTok videos, thank the modern smartphone. 

Getty Images

Transportation, er, transported

4. Digital directions. Remember when you relied on paper maps or asking someone for directions when you were lost? You would have to remember the gas station attendant’s instructions to “go two blocks, make a right on Main Street and take a left at the stop sign.” These days, you find your way through Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze and other location-capable apps, all of them free.

You can even go beyond the navigational smarts once reserved for expensive in-dashboard GPS systems. Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto have widespread compatibility across recent model year vehicles. Audible turn-by-turn directions and, in some cases, crowdsourced traffic data can steer you to a faster route. Never wonder where to find a gas station, hotel, landmark or restaurant again.

5. Private-car taxis. When was the last time you flagged down a cab? Nowadays you can arrange for a taxi to meet you or schedule a ride in advance via Lyft, Uber or other ride-hailing apps that wouldn’t exist without the phone.

6. New travel routines. Paper boarding passes printed at home or an airport kiosk, like paper airline tickets, are becoming relics of a time before smartphones. Now you can show the pass to a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent on your phone screen. What’s more, the TSA has begun accepting some states’ digital driver’s licenses as proof of identification.

You probably booked your flight and the rest of your itinerary through your phone without making a call. The phone screen is also where you’ll see delay and gate change information. When you get to your hotel, you might even use your phone as a room key.

Entertainment on your schedule

7. Books in your pocket. The phone doubles as an e-book reader, sparing you from schlepping around a stack of back-breaking books and other reading materials. You can purchase and download books right from the handset or borrow them from your local public library through an app.

8. Music libraries transformed. In some respects, the smartphone is the modern equivalent of the transistor radio of yesteryear, but with far superior sound and giving you the ability to tap into local stations and listen to content from around the world. Beyond radio stations you might get through an app, typically for free, you can hear almost any song you want whenever you want to hear it, at least if you subscribe to services such as Amazon Music, Apple Music and Spotify.

You can also listen to podcasts on virtually any subject imaginable at no cost. 

Getty Images

9. Health and fitness tracking. Smartphones count our steps, calories burned and other fitness metrics. But they also bolster our well-being in other ways. You may be taking advantage of telehealth visits with your doctors, which took off during the pandemic but are almost certainly here to stay. The phone is also a repository for digital health records.

A financial evolution

10. The decline of cash. The use of coins and bills may be on borrowed time, along with your physical wallet. Through Apple Pay and Google Pay, you can purchase products by holding your smartphone near a payment terminal in a physical store. You can use the services online, too.

In lieu of cash or checks, you may use peer-to-peer payment apps such as Cash App, Venmo and Zelle to pay, say, your piano teacher or the kid who mows your lawn. While such apps are simple and convenient, keep in mind that they lack the same protections you get by paying with a credit card, should a crook scam you into parting with your money.

11. Money management in general. It’s not just paying bills. We check our spending, transfer money across bank accounts, get stock quotes and manage investment portfolios on our devices.

Getty Images

Social media, for better and worse

12. Social media. We use our thumbs to access Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), among other social media outlets, to catch up with colleagues, family and friends. But social media is too often a place where misinformation spreads, controversial views are shared and discourse is anything but civil.

13. Video calling. The next best thing to being there is the sheer joy of seeing loved ones and coworkers on a smartphone screen — and having them see you in return. That was never more evident than during the pandemic when most of us were stuck at home and often isolated. FaceTime, Google Meet, Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp and Zoom, among other services, have mostly made video calling seamless.

14. Home phones’ decline. We sometimes forget these handsets make and receive phone calls. As of December 2022, almost 73 percent of households said they’d ditched their landlines, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. What’s more, because we routinely make calls by tapping someone’s name on a phone screen or by asking Siri or Google Assistant to dial, we may not remember most phone numbers.

15. Emergency readiness. Your smartphone may save a life, but not just because you might make a call if you’re in an accident or experience a medical emergency. Some Androids and iPhones have shortcuts for dialing 911, and some models can even detect crashes and summon help if you are incapacitated and can’t dial.

16. Digital addiction. Maybe the biggest downside of the modern smartphone is our own inability to resist gazing at the screen 24/7.

The good: “We are connected to the world through our phones,” says Stacey Cahn, an executive producer at Tampa-based Time in a Bottle Video Productions. The bad: “We need to unplug, look up and around. You can’t smell fresh air through a phone ... yet.”

This story, originally published April 27, 2022, has been updated with additional ways smartphones have changed our lives.