Smart Phones are Taking Over the World

“By the end of this decade virtually every phone sold will be what we now call a smart phone: a mobile communications device that goes beyond voice calls and has the capacity to run computer applications, send and receive e-mail, pinpoint locations via global positioning systems (GPS), and more.” I first read that sentence a few weeks ago, when it was published in the report How Mobile Devices are Changing the World’s Information Ecosystem, released by the Center for International Assistance and the National Endowment for Democracy. The report also notes that 90% of the global population has access to digital and cellular technologies. Several weeks later, I'm still amazed by the pace of mobile data growth. These trends are bound to have a deep impact on how we communicate, get information, document events, and more. The implications of these findings present numerous opportunities for our work here at NDI, but also bring about new challenges. Some of the effects of this trend can already be seen with the rise of citizen reporting. This type of participation can increase accountability and create transparency but needs to be coupled with mechanisms that can aggregate and make sense of these reports. This trend will also affect how we at NDI advise many of our partners to create websites, as we will now have to think about how to effectively design a website for a browser and a mobile interface. Our work in closed societies will also be affected, as mobile phones will become a prominent method for activists to stay connected, but given governments' abilities to triangulate calls and through cell phone towers see where individuals are located (two of many security issues), activists will have to now take these threats into account. So as we move towards a world of smart phones, our work will have new opportunities to foster citizen participation and build democratic institutions, but it will come with new threats and challenges. We expect that this shift will bring with it more initiatives such as Mobile Active’s Mobile Media toolkit, which is a collection of tools and resources that can help address the opportunities and challenges of an increasingly mobile world.