This is a snapshot of my digital bag, embodied in my trusty iPhone. In my daily routines, whether commuting to work, hitting the gym, or catching up with friends, I’ve ditched the physical bags altogether. Why? Because my digital companion houses everything I need. Let me introduce you to some of the cornerstone applications that make my phone indispensable:
Wallet: This gem securely holds digital versions of my cards, facilitating seamless payments.
Banking App: An essential tool for money transfers, managing savings, and accessing e-statements.
Training Studio App: This app lets me schedule and book my gym classes effortlessly.
Notes: A sacred digital space where I meticulously organize various notes under categories like health, prayers, keys and passwords, recipes, parent meds, and quick conversation snippets.
Photos App: This is where my cherished memories reside—trips, family gatherings, moments with friends, special occasions, and funny memes.
Religious Radio App: A spiritual sanctuary that rejuvenates my soul and reminds me of the purpose behind each new day.
Shopping App: My virtual shopping companion serves as a shopping list and a gateway to e-stores for ordering groceries, medications, clothing, gifts, and household essentials.
Social Media Apps: While I’m not an active participant, I use these apps to stay informed about the happenings in the lives of my family and friends.
Professional Apps: LinkedIn takes center stage here, offering insights into the thoughts and proposals of professionals within my field of interest.
Meet App: This video calling app is my lifeline for staying connected with family and friends—whether they’re abroad or just a jump away.
Game: A delightful diversion for group entertainment during downtime.
Navigation App: This one’s a lifesaver for navigating unfamiliar places, ensuring I quickly reach my destinations.
Health App: This is a great tool for monitoring my heart rate and physical activity.
My digital bag illustrates how digital technology and various applications enable me to manage, communicate, and organize information through text-based interactions. Here is how I linked it to the topic of text and technology.
I use various applications on my iPhone, such as messaging apps like Notes, social media apps, LinkedIn, and the Meet video call app, to communicate with my family and professional contacts. These apps allow me to send text messages (written or oral), emojis, and memes, conveying strong messages without words. Various technologies, such as smartphones and internet connections, facilitate this digital communication.
Apps like Notes and Photos are great for organizing my information. I use Notes to store and categorize text-based information on various subjects. Meanwhile, Photos is a digital storyteller, capturing important and emotional moments reflecting my culture, traditions, travels, and life milestones.
When I use the Shopping app, I can easily order groceries, medications, clothing, and other items from various e-stores. This app connects me with text-based product descriptions, reviews, and other textual content associated with online shopping.
I rely on textual information, like maps, directions, and location-based data, to help me navigate and reach my destinations easily through the navigation app. It is fascinating to see how technology combines text and geographic data to make my life easier.
Game apps are a great example of how technology can entertain text-based interactions, including in-game text, instructions, and communication with other players.
My bag lacked digital devices twenty years ago, except for a CD or camera at best. I don’t recall owning a cell phone at that time. My bag would typically contain a small notebook, a map, a set of keys, a wallet with cash, an address book, a camera, and perhaps even a CD. While my digital bag from the early 2000s may seem outdated by today’s standards, it represented the state-of-the-art technology of its time. It’s amazing to see how much progress we’ve made in two decades, with smartphones and digital convergence completely transforming how we live, work, and connect.
As we progress, our digital footprints will serve as a valuable resource for researchers, shedding light on our era’s culture, technology, and lifestyle. Reflecting on the various applications I use on my phone, I realize they could provide future archaeologists with significant clues about our time period. These digital breadcrumbs could reveal our preferred foods and restaurants, the activities we enjoyed, the places we traveled to, our financial status, the languages we spoke, our favorite music, our occupations, and other critical economic, health, sociological, and financial information about our society. It’s interesting to think about how our digital lives could be studied and analyzed and what conclusions could be drawn from them.