SmartPhones: Bringing People Together or Splitting Them Apart?!

While the purpose of smartphones was to bring people together through email, chat, SMS and phone calls all on one device, the split they created among their users is getting wider each day. You would see advertisements for any newly established smartphone company that attacks the existing successful one. For example, this is an Apple mac advertisement making fun of Microsoft’s PC in 2009 even before smartphones get that popular:

Then suddenly Samsung started to get popular with their smartphones so they had to tackle the already established Apple iPhone. In this 2012 ad Samsung makes a mockery of iPhone fans waiting, in a long queue, for the release of the brand new iPhone.

Here is another video made by Samsung. Notice the part when he says "Some Smartphones are smarter than others".

With Samsung establishment in the field of smartphones, it has created its own fans, who started hating Apple and calling them “Sheep” or "iSheep". While on the other side Apple fans called Samsung fans “Copy Cats” or "Copy bots". The situation escalated, with the Apple-Samsung judicial fights over patents. This has split the two fans entirely and each side viewing itself superior over the other.

Nokia with its Microsoft Software couldn’t leave the Apple-Samsung fight without making use of it, to regain its popularity once more. In this ad Microsoft and Nokia make a mockery of Apple and Samsung fans.

Now let’s look on smartphone fans in three different Sociological perspectives:

According to the Functionalist Approach Samsung and Apple fans can be seen as the only way to achieve stability and order in the smartphone industry. At the end people can argue that these Samsung-Apple fights serve to help the audience understand the differences between the two products and not get fooled by the media. Therefore, it’s a positive thing.

In this functionalist perspective, Samsung fans gather collectively around their Android totem while the apple fans around the Apple totem. Behind the Apple and Android totems, fans collectively effervesce as they feel a shared feeling of identity in which they experience waves of emotions, a sense of unity and togetherness each behind his favorite logo. Some people feel the pride in wearing shirts that have their company’s totem on, or place their Apple stickers on their cars’ glass. Some other people speak about the advantages and disadvantages on each of the two popular phones of Samsung or Apple of the time and convince others about the best phone in their perspective. Therefore, each community started having its own way of looks and speech to recognize them from the other.

From an Apple fans’ perspective they view Samsung as an out-group which is a group toward which members of the in-group (Apple) feel a sense of separation, opposition, or hatred. Likewise for Samsung who identify Android followers as their in-group while apple fans as out-groups. Samsung and Apple fans despite their lack of physical proximity to one another still feel a sense of belonging each to his community whether its Apple or Samsung. This is what is defined by Grazian in his book “mix it up” as an “Imagined Community”.

According to the critical approach, the fame of Samsung and Apple reflect and reinforce the economic and cultural approach of mass media industry. Samsung and Apple can be defined as the dominant group in smartphones meaning that they are the group with the greatest power, the most privileges, and the highest social status. Statistics show that the Android and Apple market alone control 75.6% of the smartphone industry, so its normal to see Apple and Android fans (or Apple and Samsung fans, since Samsung is the most known Android smartphone).

In this approach one could call the huge firms the Bourgeoisie who are small group of modern capitalists who own the means of production, while the company’s fans as Proletariat who are a large group of population who use Samsung and Apple products and are influenced by their ideas.

However, it is important to acknowledge the awareness some people have when they choose their phones. For example, in these videos are interviews with two Texas A&M University at Qatar students studying Electrical and Computer Engineering like me. They look more into the technical specs than the producing company. (Excuse my tilted videos)

This takes us nicely to the interaction theory which states that culture is created, diffused and consumed among small groups of individuals. Many people buy the iPhone because they see their friends use the iPhones. Many others buy a Samsung phone because they received a word of mouth in their social network that it has higher technical specs. It’s not necessarily that the company intended to divide the consumers. It could be that the small micro-level interactions created the split that expanded and large firms took advantage over them.

My dear reader, while no one is sure which theory of the three sociological perspectives (functionalist, critical, or interaction) explains the realistic situation. It is up to you to choose the ones that make u happy and answer your questions. Certainly one can argue that all the three are bundled together. But which was the the theory that explains the Genesis of the Apple-Samsung conflict?!