Why cell phones and smart phones are ubiquitous

One of my students just posted this AT&T ad to a blog in our class, and it struck me as a brilliant example of why we long for cell phones and smart phones: we want to be connected, we want to sustain relationships we are already in, particularly in a world that seems ever more chaotic and scary. It also reminded me of one of the early examples in Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody.