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[telecom] Disruptions: How Smartphones Are Making Wallets Obsolete

Disruptions: How My Smartphone Emptied My Pockets

By NICK BILTON DECEMBER 9, 2012

Growing up, I noticed that something happened to my father as he aged: his wallet expanded with each passing year.

There were new credit cards, membership cards, coffee cards, business cards, pictures of his family, stamps and other plastic and paper things, added almost weekly. Eventually, his wallet grew so large that he would pull it out of his back pocket when he sat down, dropping it on the table like a brick.

As I've grown older, something entirely different has happened to my wallet: each year, it has become slimmer. Things that once belonged there have gradually been siphoned out by my smartphone. Last week, I realized I didn't need to carry a wallet anymore. My smartphone had replaced almost everything in it.

So, it's gone. Add that to the pile of things - my address books, Filofax, portable music player, point-and-shoot camera, printouts of maps - that have melded into the smartphone.

So where did the things that used to live in my wallet go?

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Reply to
Monty Solomon
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With the way people are oblivious to their surroundings when using so-called "smartphones" and flaunt them publicly every time they use them [thus attracting the attention of robbers who will steal them as 1000s of stories attest daily], more than just their pockets will be emptied, to wit checking and credit card accounts for starters followed by identity theft.

The argument that a wallet is also "putting all one's eggs in one basket" is specious because a wallet is typically hidden from any public view in a man's trouser's pocket or a woman's purse.

Thad

Reply to
Thad Floryan

+1. What's more, particularly when traveling abroad, there's lots of stuff that doesn't go into wallets: passports, airline FF cards, AARP and AAA membership cards, Traveler's Cheques, tickets, etc. The last time I got mugged abroad, I had stuff scattered through 9 (nine) pockets, and my muggers were content with whatever they found in just two of them, leaving the rest entirely alone. So they got a few hundred bucks in cash, another few hundred bucks in Traveler's Cheques, my SS card, and a few credit cards. What they did *not* get far outweighed what they did :-) .

("Nine pockets?" I hear you asking. Sure: 4 in my pants, 4 in my jacket, one in my shirt. What they grabbed? R. front and L. rear pants pockets.)

Cheers, -- tlvp

Reply to
tlvp

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