The handy device that we even fear to keep inside the handbag so as not to miss a single notification has become a status symbol. It must have the best of everything, be it brand name, service provider, storage or apps. If nothing else, its camera has to be the best.
The use of the mobile phone is more for its camera. It records images and videos irrespective of the motor skills of the user. I said, skills do not matter here. The most common image is of the object in the middle with half the screen filled with the street and the upper half with the sky. Again, it is also fashionable to cut off the top of the head in close up portraits. It speaks volumes for the present generation of creative people. All you need is the mobile handset.
The peculiar feature that the mobile camera offers is called vertical videos. The popularity of Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, live streaming or real time videos emerge straight from the handy device that occupies us 24/7.
Not long ago, it was considered unprofessional to record vertical videos. The standard frame of YouTube is widescreen, technically designated as 16:9 ratio of width: height. After the rise and subsequent fall of the video hosting service called TikTok, YouTube offered the substitute service now known as YouTube Shorts. It has the inverse ratio of 9:16 for vertical videos, suited to the mobile phone user, popularized by the new generation of creative minds.
All the apps that are installed in the mobile phone send notifications to the user. These can be controlled by the user if one chooses. Our busy life becomes busier with these notifications but we dare not remove or silence them. The pulse of our activities is recorded moment to moment by our response to these notifications. The more we respond the likelier the increase in the notifications. Even the advertisement via the SMS service pops in exactly when the user dials a number.
The more apps one installs, the more enchained one becomes in the notifications for reels, prompts, advertisements, memes, none of which are going to enrich one’s life a single bit. I once started following all the YouTube Shorts notifications for videos on pet dogs. It turned out that there were endless Shorts posted by the same creator with almost the same dogs posted one day after another, some shots even repeated.
In the 1980s when TV serials had started, one would set aside an hour for its viewing, at the most. That was an hour scheduled for entertainment. Now, watching several videos, each spanning for less than a minute, on diverse themes, there is no set limit to entertainment. These are the least informative and the most damaging to concentration.
The new trick for creative minds is to be quick in drawing attention and as speedily delivering a thought. Of all the YouTubers around the world only a handful can garner millions of subscribers and succeed in earning a few dollars from their creative videos. But for the undiscerning mobile phone user, all’s the same.
