"It's magic!" It barely took 10 minutes to persuade my sceptical grandfather of the beauty that is my iPhone 3GS. All I had to do was show him the contents of his office in the palm of my hand and find a picture of a Mediterranean shrub faster than the
75-year-old botanist and he was impressed.
About a year ago I spent more money on a phone than I did on my car. As a girl who needs a panel of five friends to convince me to buy a $10 pair of shoes, it wasn't a decision that I took lightly. At that point the positives, as brought to my attention by my favourite Apple experts and strenuous research, were as follows: a decent camera, 16GB of memory ready to be filled with my music, access to thousands of useful (or useless but amazing) applications and unmatchable street cred.
I bought it because my cheap Nokia brick had lost half its screen and I wanted a change I could be proud of. Since then I've enjoyed discovering more benefits to the smartest of the smart phones.
Having wireless internet at my house means that no longer do I have to queue behind my five tech-savvy siblings, Facebook addict mother and computer programmer father to get on the one desktop in our house so that I can attempt to do my homework.
I can now research, write essays, create presentations and email them to my teachers just as I would on any computer.
I'm not going to lie. Of course I'm not using my supernatural phone solely for study. But contrary to popular opinion, productivity hasn't decreased since buying the device.
I have noticed, however, that I am managing to do more social networking. Like many readers, I would imagine, I have multiple websites that I check a couple of times a day in order to keep in touch with what's happening in my friendship groups, community and world.
All the sites I visit often, namely Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, have an application that makes them accessible to me anywhere on my iPhone. Why twiddle your thumbs at the bus stop when you can keep connected to your friends from school or on the other side of the world?
The Apple brand and the iPhone have become a way of life. It wakes me in the morning, puts me to sleep at night and monitors my sleep. As soon as I wake, before I go to bed and any other time I like, I check Facebook and Twitter and then read an online newspaper if anything of note has happened.
It plays and makes music and movies. It organises my busy schedule, suggests where I should go and shows me how to get there. It holds my favourite books and captures my memories to be shared with one tap of the screen.
I don't believe that finding faster ways to do things compromises the quality or integrity of whatever work I am doing or will do, therefore I am a strong supporter of the iPhone, smartphones in general and the "work smarter, not harder" philosophy behind them.
Yes, I could live without this machine that is sometimes criticised for wasting time or being merely another branded accessory that will need to be upgraded within the year. But why would I want to?
As Granddad exclaimed, "You can do anything with a tap!" Maybe I have been brainwashed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, or I am just another yuppie-wannabe. But if they find better ways to do anything that I can't see any real negatives for then I will upgrade, finances willing.
Rebekah Etherington, Year 13, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu - The Correspondence School
"It's magic!" It barely took 10 minutes to persuade my sceptical grandfather of the beauty that is my iPhone 3GS. All I had to do was show him the contents of his office in the palm of my hand and find a picture of a Mediterranean shrub faster than the
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