Until the advent of the smartphone ‘holding the world in the palm of your hand’ was simply a poetic flourish: a metaphor that was more about the power of imagination than any literal truth. But now that we can access the limitless intelligence of the world-wide-web, and now that we can immerse our imaginations in cinematic other worlds, what we have is something perhaps even more miraculous than that old cliché describes.
The place of digital technologies in our day to day lives is still in something of a state of flux. As the Dutch socio-technical writer Wieber Bijker would put it, they are still unresolved. What we do with them, and what it means to use them, are still works in progress. A few years ago it would have represented something extraordinary for someone to play poker over a handset whist waiting for a plane. Now it is simply something that we might do as a matter of course.
In the process, the place of gambling – to continue with the poker example – has shifted its place in the public consciousness. The online gambling industry now boasts something in excess of 170 million players globally and is reckoned to be worth over US$30 billion. Whereas once gaming activity was a matter of discrete physical environments – casinos, race tracks, bookmakers – it is now something that resides in the breast pockets and the hand luggage of every one of us. That US$30 billion industry simply did not exist 20 years ago.
Companies such as bet365 are the badge carrying commercial ambassadors for this socio-technical transformation. As smartphones have gone viral, they have ferried these representatives of the online gaming industry (as one example of many) along with them. Gambling is increasingly a mainstream rather than a niched pastime. Hand held technology has brought it in from the cold.
Social media, selfies and a million different apps satisfying every imaginable need all point to the way the world is changing in our hands. The online gambling industry’s move into the mainsteam is merely one amongst many phenomena that our grandparents could scarcely have imagined.
As such it offers a conspicuous example of the way that the way our technological capacities are changing our social behaviour. And it is too early to say where those developments may lead. In a sense this consideration represents a moving target and we will probably need the perspective of a few decades to begin to appreciate just how our socio-technical (and ideological) lives have been reshaped.
Just as no-one would have imagined the humble bicycle to be a driver of female emancipation a hundred years ago, it would take a brave person to foresee what is in store for the generation that grows up with the world perpetually at their fingertips. For all the excitement surrounding Google Glasses currently, it is hard to imagine that the hand held age will be surpassed any time soon. After all, in uncertain times people like to have something to hold on to.