Constantly Connected: A Day in the Life of Two iPhone Users

It happens all the time: you’re sitting in the dining hall with your friends, and you quote a movie—only to be disputed by a friend, claiming your quote was from a totally different flick. You begin to bicker, when someone announces they can definitively answer your question. She whips out her smart phone and googles the quote. Conflict resolved.

Smart phones, which are phones with Internet access and the ability to download applications, were once reserved for high-level executives and workaholics, but have made their way down the corporate ladder and into the hands of college students. So what are we doing with all this connectivity?

Not a whole lot, it seems. “They’re using them for e-mail and a lot of texting,” says Michael Hanley, Director of the Institute for Mobile Media Research and Professor of journalism at Ball State University. “Texting is still one of the main uses.” He emphasizes that improved user experience from features like larger screens, not Internet access, was one of the largest draws to smart phones for college students.

But as I’m still in the dark ages with my regular cell phone, I didn’t quite believe that students lucky enough to have smart phones weren’t utilizing features like their Internet browsers more often. That couldn’t be right, could it? To find out, I talked to two iPhone users, and had them track their iPhone usages for a day. Here’s what I uncovered:

Chayva Lehrman, a junior at Wellesley College, echoed Professor Hanley’s comments. “Primarily, it’s my phone,” she says. “It’s also my alarm clock. It’s my ipod from time to time.” And her phone diary proved that mostly true:

7:05am- Alarm #1
7:10am- Alarm #2
7:20am- Snooze expires and alarm goes off again.
7:25am- Check the weather so I know how cold it is and what to wear.
9:43am- A friend calls to arrange lunch plans.
2:05pm- Used timer to make sure I wasn't late for my voice lesson, as I had five minutes to do some reading before I needed to go. 3:19pm- Texted a friend my address in response to a text I'd gotten from her earlier.
4:44pm-Texted a friend to say I wouldn't make an evening event.
7:15pm- Called two friends to postpone a meeting.
7:45pm- Checked First Class, Wellesley’s e-mail and messaging system, on First Class application to get information relevant to my meeting for Yanvalou, a Haitian and Afro-Brazilian dance group.
8:00pm- Texted a friend for her whereabouts before meeting up with her.
8:25pm- Used Calendar in the meeting with my friend.
10:00pm- Called Dad to say happy birthday. 10:20pm- Texted a friend. 11:15pm- Texted a friend.
12:13am- Texted Mom to let her know I'd sent an email to her personal mailbox. 2:45am- Set alarm to wake up in the morning.

But was Chayva’s usage typical? Gabrielle Rabinowitz, a junior at Yale, said her iPhone is “almost like another sense.” So surely she must use it a ton, and for just about everything, right? Or maybe not. Let’s see what her usage reveals:

11:20am- Called a friend to make lunch plans.
11:35am- Checked e-mail and sent an email to lab partner.
11:48am- Sent tweet.
11:49am- Called a friend to let him know I'd arrived for lunch.
11:52am- Replied to lab partner's reply email and sent one other.
12:37pm- Checked e-mail and Facebook.
1:10pm- Checked Twitter, then read article on Huffington Post via twitter. Checked email.
3:10pm- Checked missed calls (1). Called back.
3:29pm- Took a picture of a poster with information about a play for later reference.
4:01pm- Called study abroad office.
7:02pm- Returned missed call.

Thinking of getting a smart phone? Here’s the low-down on two of the most popular brands:

BlackBerry: Comes in a variety of models, both touch-screen and with keyboard. The amount of storage varies from 64MB to 2GB. Features include e-mail, instant messenger, camera, video recorder, browser, BlackBerry maps, GPS, and ability to download applications from BlackBerry app world. Service carriers include Verizon wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-mobile, but not all carriers are available for all models.

iPhone: Comes in two models, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS; the iPhone 3G has 8GB storage and the iPhone 3GS has 32GB storage. Both are touch-screen. Features include e-mail, instant messenger, video recorder, browser, iTunes, and the ability to download tens of thousands of applications from the iPhone app store. AT&T is the only service provider available.

So we’ve made the jump from cell phones to smart phones, but are we really taking advantage of all of their capabilities? The case has not been closed. Think your tech usage is more interesting than these two iPhone users’? Let me know in the Comments section, and we just might profile you and your smart phone for a day!

Sources:
Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Yale ‘11
Chayva Lehrman, Wellesley ‘11
Michael Hanley, Director of the Institute for Mobile Media Research and Professor of journalism at Ball State University
Photo by Andrew Huse