The People’s Tech Revolution (Infographic)

By Staff

While I always encourage caution in regard to investing in the latest and greatest technology at the drop of the hat, I do think it’s important to try and keep an idea of how technology is impacting the world, and it’s not always a bad thing to realize you’re due for an upgrade and finally take the plunge to invest in something more current if you feel you’ll make good use of it.

I don’t think anyone could have predicted that smartphones would end up playing a major role in journalistic coverage or revolutions worldwide—but as this infographic shows, they have. I feel like you can see how smartphones are beginning to represent in one device abilities we used to have to spend money on an array of different electronics to achieve. They can be a camera, a web browser, a social media hub, and, of course, a phone.

This infographic lays out how smartphones are overtaking many point-and-shoot cameras in popularity: for example, the iPhone has surpassed the Canon Powershot (a camera I have) in upload popularity on Flickr. It also examines the tension between “citizen journalism” and traditional photojournalism. While that’s a very new issue, I think it is well worth considering. It’s my hope that citizen journalists with smartphones can become a driving support to photojournalism, and that the proliferation of media from ordinary people will help keep the world at large more informed and aware.