Sheryl Connelly, the manager of global consumer trends and futuring, at Ford Motor Company said quite accurately, that the signal into adulthood in today’s day of age for teenagers is the smartphone. Ms. Connelly also says that a teenager’s valuable time for sending text messages or updating statuses is limited when they are driving a car, and as a result they would rather wait for a ride from a parent or public transportation. Another leader in the Ford Company, K. Venkatesh Prasad, senior technical leader of open innovation said that the car as to become and experience rather than just a car. To put it simply, many automakers, including Ford must create their cars more like smartphones in order to entice the teenagers.
The new symbol of freedom for teenagers nowadays is one that can fit into your pocket. Thilo Koslowski said mobile devices, gadgets and the Internet are not only becoming must-have lifestyle products that convey status, but also are overtaking the automobile in a degree of freedom and social research. In a survey from 2011, it was discovered that 46 percent of people between the ages of 18 to 24 would choose access to the Internet over access to their own car. Furthermore, only 15 percent of the baby boom generation would say that the survey found the IPhone is today’s Ford Mustang. The Transportation Department of the United States released statistics that reveal how the amount of teenage drivers is decreasing over the years. In 2008, only 30 percent of 16-year-olds obtained their driver’s license as opposed to the 50 percent of 16-year-olds that obtained their driver’s license in 1978. Lastly, not only do fewer teenagers have their driver’s license but those who have it also drive less. The transportation department says that 21-to-30-year-olds now drive 8 percent fewer miles than they did in 1995.
With the negatives, also come some positives as in any case. The less driving being done can also have less of an effect on our nations air pollution. If size were any factor in how much work a gadget can produce, a car would be able to produce a significant amount more than a smartphone. With that being said, it is clear that cars could become even smarter than smartphones. Just some of the things a car would be able to do, besides drive itself, is check teenagers into Foursquare when they arrive to a certain place and read text message aloud for the driver. The cars would also be able to take pictures of the passengers with built-in cameras and upload it to social networking sites such as Facebook, while tagging the passengers, and even play music from a shared music network based on the type of music teenagers listen to. With technology nowadays, it is unclear to me why a measly smartphone can overpower an automobile in the signal of freedom.
Photo Credit: Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times
