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Friday, June 28, 2019

Smartphones becoming the first choice for online access


©Mark Ollig 





Remember using an America Online (AOL) program disk?

During the 1990s, AOL was giving away a 3.5-inch disk containing its setup program we installed on our computer.

Those AOL disks seemed to be everywhere.

They were sent in the mail, and you saw them available in many stores.

I recall inserting the AOL disk into my tower computer’s disk drive and running the setup program.

The program called the AOL telephone number over my telephone line which was plugged into the computer modem. When the line wasn’t busy, I would hear the confirming handshake between the AOL modem and my computer modem.

Once connected and signed in, I would check my email, and then access the web/internet through AOL’s network gateway.

It was common knowledge some people collecting those free disks did not install the AOL program. They would instead reformat the disks and store their text and photo files on them.

By 1997, AOL had become so popular; nearly half of all US households had internet access through its online portal.

I also had a subscription to the Prodigy online service during the mid-1990s. Prodigy was a large, dialup computer bulletin board service (BBS) with an easy-to-navigate graphical user interface, and many topic-specific community chat rooms.

At the time, subscribing to an online commercial (or computer hobbyist) BBS dialup service was the standard way of getting online.

It was the ‘90s, and folks were asking each other, “Are you online?”

We were slowly migrating into this new, virtual online community.

The word “online” was probably one of the most common words being used in conversations during the 1990s – at least it was in mine.

But, I digress.

Today, more of us are using our smartphones as the primary way of accessing websites, social media networks, and other online services.

Pew Research reports over the last eight years, there has been a 46 percent increase in the number of people who own a smartphone.

A smartphone is analogous with a mobile cellphone having internet access. A smartphone also performs, more or less, the functions of a computer.

Today, 81 percent of Americans own a smartphone, according to Pew.

Of all adults polled, 37 percent say they mostly use a smartphone when accessing the web/internet, which is about double what it was in 2013.

It’s no surprise to learn 58 percent of today’s young adults, 18- to 29-year-olds, say they use their smartphone for online access. This is an increase of 41 percent since 2013.

When we look at adults age 30 to 49 using a smartphone for internet access from 2013 to today, a 23 percent increase is realized, as 24 percent said they used their smartphone in 2013 for online access compared with 47 percent today.

The percentage shift in using smartphones for internet access also shows more folks are not using their home broadband connection, and instead, are favoring their smartphone’s wireless connection to the internet.

Speaking for myself, I use my smartphone (Galaxy S9+) for accessing not only social media, but news sites, and, of course, Googling.

While writing, I sometimes grab my smartphone and ask Google for a word synonym, or to verify the spelling of a specific word.

It is a given; soon, we will use smartphones using 5G (5th generation) cellular wireless technology tethering with our other computing devices.

The Pew survey of adults shows 27 percent currently do not subscribe to traditional home broadband service. These folks are using their smartphones, instead.

Of the 45 percent not having a broadband internet connection, they say it is because their smartphone allows them to access everything they need online.

Others surveyed by Pew said the area they live in is not served with affordable high-speed internet, so they use their smartphones instead.

Of this group of non-broadband users, 80 percent said they are not interested in getting high-speed internet connections at their home.

Our reliance on our smartphones is increasing, and it has become a necessity for most. Just think of how you felt when you thought you lost your smartphone – yup, I felt that way, too.

Today, AOL is owned by Verizon Media and has merged with another 1990s online web service provider, Yahoo!

For those keeping track, I used the word “online” only 16 times in this column.