The Rising Battle for the Planet of the Apps: Moving From an L-Class to an M-Class Planet

Introduction

Mobile learning was prevalent (Naismith, 2004) prior to the launch of the Palm Pilot, PocketPC, BlackBerry or the launch of the iPhone. However, the iPhone launched a rising battle of applications (apps) to help or entertain people in their daily lives. Yet, mobile learning is still battling to be recognized as if educators, trainers, and facilitators are still treating their classes like L-Class planets, which are marginally habitable, with vegetation, lush for growth, but with no animal or human life (Howell, 2017). Even amidst the forced shift to online classes and many students using their mobile phones to participate and engage with live and asynchronous classes, the new shift to our educational engagements becoming an M-Class planet of m-learning thriving in a seamless, theoretically informed, and integrated manner in educational settings, is still a work in progress.

Mobile technologies came to the rescue for many during the pandemic, but the hope of challenging the role of teachers or trainers, by students or workers as active participants via integrated mobile learning is still not as ubiquitous as mobile devices. Mobile learning is still offering micro- and macro-moments of learning in a multitude of multimodal stimulating means cultivating opportunities for transformation. People now have access to a wealth of multimodal information and stimuli, which can either be forces of distraction, tools of engagement or convert waiting times into productive learning opportunities. Mobile phones and tablet devices have become devices of choice for producing, consuming and engaging with content. Content ranging from texting, calling and checking email, to Internet connected smart Television (TV) for the usual suspects of social media, online video, news, podcasts, weather, or connecting to, producing and/or listening to music via smart speakers (Chaffey, 2021). In the United Kingdom (UK), the 2020 Ofcom Online Nation report indicates that people in the UK spend four-fifths of their time on their mobile phones. Whereas ZDNet, citing a report from a St Louis source that sampled 2000 multi-generational Americans, indicate that from that data, most Americans across generations spend 5 hours per day on their smartphones, with 18% indicating that they spend over 12 hours per day on their phone (Brown, 2019). Notably, the World Economic forum, cites a PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PWC) report which indicates that “the COVID-19 pandemic has helped drive an increase in smartphone data usage” (Myers, 2021). Understandably, the mobile phone prior to the pandemic was already a major source of social connectedness for many people through all or some of the activities mentioned above (Mentor, 2011; 2018). The Ministry of Social Development of New Zealand’s government also regularly checks on New Zealanders social connectedness, which they use as an indicator of well-being and public mental health, and the mobile phone has consistently shown to aid people’s social connectedness (2016, 2018). Opposing views to this literature review are reports of the dangers of digital engagement in the form of anonymous and nefarious online engagement, as well as social media companies designing algorithms to promote addictive smartphone behavior (Hanes, 2018). However, there are also reports of smartphones, apps, and new computer technology use, aiding mental health by keeping people connected to their loved ones during numerous pandemic lockdown restrictions (Sharma, Batra, and Flatt, 2021). While David and Roberts’s 2021 article title captured the dichotomy best with their article “Smartphone Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Social Versus Physical Distancing” with the virtual connectedness making up for the social distancing and helping to combat feelings of isolation and even more so during various stages of the pandemic lockdown periods that we experienced.