Are you finally ready to admit it's the phones?

Photo by Grisha Petrosyan on Unsplash“No. I am Hugh.” — HughI remember the first time I heard about the invention of the iPhone, back in 2007. My friend, who followed Apple products with an almost religious zeal — there were many such people in those days — entered the room and announced “This is the convergence!” We spent the next few minutes gaping in awe at the idea that every single piece of portable consumer electronics was about to be combined into a single device. For many, it felt like a messianic moment. The iPhone was probably the last big innovation that we Americans embraced as a whole society. Everybody had an iPhone, or wanted one. Engineers loved how the thing was engineered. Humanities PhD students showed off the latest model at parties and admired the sleek design.1 Kids in working class neighborhoods were glued to their iPhones in math class. It was a supercomputer in your pocket, a voice for the voiceless, the tricorder and the communicator from Star Trek, all that…