Rumors of a wearable device and larger screen are swirling in advance of Apple’s iPhone6 introduction.
Steve Jones, new media expert and distinguished professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says users are de facto “wearing” their smartphones on them all the time anyway, so it makes sense to have them more accessible and worn on the wrist.
The screen development is a sign of how reliant people are on their devices, in part for productivity reasons (easier typing, reading) and entertainment (viewing video), he says.
A leading social historian of communication technology, Jones is an expert on the cultural impact of new media platforms and devices.
Founder and first president of the Association of Internet Researchers, Jones has been using the Internet since 1979, when he was co-authoring educational materials on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s path-breaking PLATO system.
His interests in technology and policy extend into popular music, youth culture and communication. Other research interests include virtual environments and virtual reality and media history.
Jones is senior research fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project and co-editor of New Media & Society, an international research journal. He also edits New Media Cultures, a series of books on culture and technology, and Digital Formations, a series on new media.
His own books, especially “Virtual Culture : Identity and Communication in Cybersociety” (1997) and “Doing Internet Research” (1998), have earned critical acclaim.
RSS