Smartphone

A smartphone is a mobile device that combines the functionality of a traditional mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multimedia playback and streaming. Smartphones have built-in cameras, GPS navigation, and support for various communication methods, including voice calls, text messaging, and internet-based messaging apps. Smartphones are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, access to the internet, business applications, mobile payments, and multimedia functionality, including music, video, gaming, radio, and television.

Quotes

• I do not accept at all that any child under the age of 14 holds or uses a mobile phone for any reason whatsoever. It is haram (forbidden) for them to do so. I do not accept it at all, ever, ever. Whoever wants to destroy his or her child give them a cell phone. This is such a bad thing that absolutely destroys a child's behaviour because the child by mistake can come across very bad clips on the phone which can shock the child and ruin his or her behaviour, and it is difficult to fix the matter in this age. These scenes will be engraved in their memories forever.
  • Ahmed al-Hasan, Sayings of Imam Ahmed Al-Hassan, p.18
  • Also displayed at the Divine Just State website of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL)

• Any adult who has doomscrolled at 3 a.m. knows how addictive smartphones can be. The remedy to phone-induced depression, obesity, and poor sleep at any age is as simple and as challenging as teaching — and practicing — self-control.
  • Beth Brelje, 10 Tips To Keep Smartphones From Making Your Kids Tired, Fat, And Miserable, The Federalist (December 1, 2025)

• Smartphones changed the world twice — first by connecting people, then by distracting them.
  • Jaron Lanier interview with, The Guardian (2022)

• A smartphone is a tool powerful enough to enrich your mind or erase your attention — the difference is how you use it.
  • Cal Newport, Georgetown University lecture (2021)

• We now carry devices in our pockets with more computing power than the machines that once sent humans to the Moon.
  • NASA Technology Report (2020)

• The smartphone is the signature technology of our age — powerful, portable, and persuasive enough to reshape human habits on a global scale.
  • MIT Human-Technology Interaction Seminar, Sherry Turkle (2020)

• For billions of people, the smartphone is not just a device; it is their primary connection to education, finance, health, and opportunity.
  • Digital Development Report, United Nations (2023)

• Your phone is buzzing, beeping, glowing—always screaming for attention. Smartphones are tools, but they’re also slot machines in your pocket.
  • Tristan Harris, interview on 60 Minutes, CBS News (April 9, 2017)

• For the average American, it's three hours and fifteen minutes. We touch our phones 2,617 times every twenty-four hours.
  • Johann Hari, Stolen Focus (2022) p. 18

See also

• Mobile phone
• Internet
• Technology
• Digital media
• Social media