Let’s not talk about the ongoing ICE protest in Minneapolis. Instead let’s talk about the device that made the protests possible in the first place: smartphones. They are critical transformative tools for modern activism, used to organize over 80% of recent social movements, enabling rapid, real-time coordination through encrypted messaging social media, and live streaming According to AI smartphones have revolutionized the speed and scale of mobilization. They facilitate mass mobilization, allow for quick, decentralized planning, and serve as tools for citizen journalism and documentation of events. Beside organizing riots our phones have changed every other aspect of life in the 18 years since the first iPhone was introduced in 2007. Let’s review some of the things our phones have replaced in those 18 years:
Cameras
Maps
GPS devices
Calculators
Alarm clocks
TV’s
Radios
Camcorders
Pay phones
Yellow pages
Answering machines
Newspapers
Calendars
VCR’s
Flashlights
Watches
Timers
Compasses
Cookbooks
Keys
Cash
Airline tickets
Photo albums
Magazines
Money
Voice recorders
Scanners
Walkie talkie
Translators
Playing cards
Diaries
Travel guidebooks
Foreign phrasebooks
Portable speakers
Takeout orders by phone
CDs, DVDs
Encyclopedias
Compact mirrors
Bank branches
Checks
Address books
Parking meters
Rolodexes
Dictionaries…and on and on:
mp3 players ,portable cd players, audio cassettes, cassette players, tape decks, vhs tapes, beepers, pagers, handheld game consoles, film rolls, instant cameras, slide projectors, slide viewers, fax machines, typewriters, notebooks, planners, receipts, coupons, flyers, catalogs, brochures, instruction manuals, itineraries, tickets, boarding passes, parking permits, bills, invoices, memos, letters, landline phones, wallets, tape measures, thermometers, fitness trackers, remote controls, business cards, printed photos, phone book,s cd-roms, floppy disks …(Compiled by Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) January 17, 2026)
If you are a millennial or younger you likely don’t know what half the things on the list even are. . I don’t really have a point to this post other than to point out how our lives have been upended by a little piece of technology that has done nothing less than transform the world.
…and not necessarily for the good
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