12 Cartoons Depicting the Future of the Smartphone-Dominated World
Ever wondered what it would be like if smartphones were never invented? What if the humankind was never introduced to mobile phones at all? Imagine life about twenty years ago, when we had no Google Play store, no Facebooks, and no Instagrams. Well, if it is hard for you to imagine or remember that life, you can certainly identify with this set of humorous cartoons that portray how life has changed in leaps and bounds with smart devices taking over our lives, and what lies ahead for the future of the planet if this global smartphone addiction continues.
1 Baby’s Time Out
As the baby chooses the smartphone over a traditional toy, parents tend to flip out if the baby can no longer access anything on the device when it loses its battery. The question now is, which of the two smartphone-addicted parents’ turn it is to calm the yelling baby!
2 Dinner Time or Play Time?
Remember those crazy summer evenings when you would be playing football till nightfall on the lawn outside with friends, until your mom called out, “Enough already! Come back at once, and wash your hands for dinner”? Chances are if you are a parent now, the washing part is reduced to just the thumbs of the children who had been glued to the latest game of ‘Clash of Clans’ throughout the evening. Isn’t that easier? It is as if you can ever get their thumbs off of the screens.
3 A Tall Order
Okay, it is the run-up to the annual sports event at your child’s school, and you want to ensure he has grown enough inches from the previous year to qualify for the basketball team. Surprise! Your child seems to have got shorter, thanks to the hunch created by constantly being on the smartphone, yes, even while being measured on the scale!
4 Old-Age Pangs
A new kind of osteoarthritis is expected to hit the elderly roughly fifty years from now. This unnamed condition could be characterized by a severely hunched back, folded arms, and fingers bent and stiff from holding a smart device throughout a youth of devouring the offerings of a smart device.
5 Even Holmes Could Not Have Helped
A crime scene in the late twenty-first century bears no witness, as people are busy on their cell phones, and the criminal walks away unhindered after committing the crime. No eyewitnesses, no proofs, no clues to work on, no, even Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective of all times, could not have solved such as crime.
6 Nail That Interview
That day is not far when a job interview candidate boasts of his/her skillset with examples of their activities on social media. Funnily enough, these skills might get them the job. After all, the job interviewers of the future might not be opposed to recognizing social media activity as one of the vital skills on someone’s resume.
7 School is in Session
How many times have you gone through an educational advertisement, and were taken aback in shock (there is an app for this)? The future teacher might not be as shocked as you are, and as a matter of fact, she might be happier to simply spell out the list of apps that the students need to install. No more pains of explaining every single definition from a book, she simply lets the apps do her job.
8 Parking Woes Resolved?
Haven’t you often felt ‘’handicapped’’ when you either lost your phone or gave it for repairs (or your younger brother “borrowed” it for a day)? The bad news is, no matter how you feel without your smartphone, there is hardly any chance you will be allowed to park in a zone reserved for really differently-abled people.
9 Don’t Give Away the Ending!
You are all excited about not having to carry a bunch of heavy books when you board a plane, thanks to your e-reader. Did you remember to charge the device, though? If not, you might never get to the actual end of the book, as the device’s battery might drain off taking all the climactic actions and the mystery of the story along with it.
10 Hottest Beach Bodies
Who said there has to be uniformity in tanning to have the perfect beach body? The next generation is likely to have their own set of evaluation criteria behind a good tan, which would potentially involve the shape of the phone or the thickness of the hands running across the abdomen. Does beachwear need to be customized for anyone? Indeed, that would become a booming business, too.
11 Alien Theory
If our friends from other planets with their higher levels of intelligence have been watching us for centuries, which might be just days or hours to them, now is a good time for them to formulate effective plans to kidnap humans from the earth. All they need is a “Free WiFi” sign at the gate of the spaceship, and it will come hoards of humans glued to their smartphones like mice to a cheese trap.
12 Rehab Redefined
“Walk in with your smartphone, walk out free!”, Could be a caption you see on the entrance walls of the future rehabilitation centers. Forget addiction to intravenous drugs, establishments dealing with smartphone addictions could potentially take in a greater number of patients than any average rehab we see in our past and present times. It might be a good idea to start preparing your child for pursuing a new branch of medicine that cures such patients if the inclination exists. It is a branch that would exist in the future medical dictionary.
13 Prevention is Always Better
The humorous take on the certain place that smart devices have created for themselves in our lives only goes to show how grave the situation is for the future of humankind. It may be time we put our heads together and come up with new rules to save the future generations ending up in digital rehab, as a worse case scenario. Cut down on your smartphone usage, and encourage your children to do the same. Have them play outside more often, arrange family vacations. Go on short breaks of digital detox where your entire group can be free of electronic devices. Most importantly, catch signs of smartphone addictions in children of younger age, and lead by example on how to minimize the exposure to such devices.