As you can see, this is an extremely short panel set and I’m thinking that it should be modified to larger related topic—phablets?  I’m open to suggestions, as while I don’t see a huge number of tablets on campus [it seems to either be phones or laptops], when you are out and about, I see a lot of them.  In addition, I frequently see students with laptops on while accessing their phone.  My current guess (very likely inaccurate) is that the sequence is: tablet when little, graduate to smartphone at 7-8 years old, laptop at college—added to phone.

If I’m right, then it helps to explain a phenomena we are noticing more with undergraduates nationally—while students are very effective on a small set of APPs, they have more difficulty than expected when using more complicated computer-based software and with computer/digital logic (moving items from Google Drive to Dropbox for example).

The key with this topic is that of portability—24/7 connectedness.  Keep this material in mind as we move in to the next set of panels dealing with the social impact of Applications and social media, where this portability and persistently-on aspect have been critical.

Studies suggest that there one very powerful motivation to move to new social media platforms is that of group identify—for the group to use the new platform before everyone else finds out about it—to be on top of what’s hot, what’s trending in social APPs.

One of the main complaints about Facebook is its ubiquity—it’s been around forever and everyone uses it.  This suggests that social APP usage has become a significant marker in group acceptance and identity, in the way that clothing, colors or piercing were key markers 10 years ago.  To the concern of phone makers, it is starting to look like the APP is surpassing the type of phone as the key social indicator—what social media you use is becoming more significant than what you use it on [iPhone8, Samsung or HTC…].