At this point in time we may be inseparable from our phones, but by 2021, there may be no phones to be inseparable from. Certainly not in the form we know them as today. That's what 100,000 people think, according to a study conducted by ConsumerLab for Ericsson. And these people were in 40 countries too, so that's across cultures.
Of course, just because people say so doesn't make it true, but it's a safe bet to say that technology on mobile phones won't just stay the same. For one thing, we'll get bored stiff doing the same things the same way. For another, there are more things that we'll be doing, as the interent of everything spreads into everyday life. And for yet another, technology has never stood still for that long.
Artificial intelligence is thought to be the phenomenon that will help speed mobile phones on their way. As objects get connected, they will be able to understand and respond to what people want in ever increasing intelligent ways, presenting personalised solutions all the time. I often quote Amazon's Echo speaker as an example and it fits here again. You can be sitting around when you suddenly want to listen to something and you don't reach for your phone to Bluetooth a song across. Instead you just voice out your wish and the connected Echo speaker will play the song. That's something that's present now, but in the coming years, it will get more uniquitious.
Respondents to Ericsson's survey think much the same. At least a significant number of them do. It isn't possible or practical to keep pulling out your phone to your face all the time -- and that will certainly change. Even after so many years of using smartphones, we have never quite gotten used to how people are always glued to their devices, always keying in something, forever reading something... It's a matter of time before that artificial preoccupation with the phone fades away as different ways of interacting with things around us begin to take shape.
Key to the disappearance of mobile phones as we know them is the role of virtual assistants like Siri, Google and Cortana. Becoming able to understand and respond to emotions and natural language, the assistants will practically run our lives for us. Rebecka Angtstrom of ConsumerLab goes as far as to think that virtual assistants will be teaching, giving medical advice, and even financial consultancy. It's not difficult to imagine that this could happen when you already see the beginnings of it when you Google search. Just ask Google what you should take for a headache....
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Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
