TIME: How your phone is changing the world
TIME magazine's cover story for Aug. 27 addresses how phones, specifically smartphones, have revolutionized the world in the past few years. TIME paired with Qualcomm to conduct a mobility poll to see how glued we are to our mobiles; if you think we're addicted to our phones in the U.S., take a look at the numbers for Brazil, India and China. Out of the 5,000 people surveyed, 84% of them can't go for a day without their phones.
The issues TIME dove into include: using texting and apps to promote charity, how phones are slowly replacing toting cards in a wallet, access in rural areas, photography, politics, health, education, the thorny issue of how old should a child be before texting and more. Every image shot in the package was done so using a mobile phone camera.
TIME prepared for the story by soliciting Instagram photos from around the world, stitching them together in a collage of 288 photos. The original submissions were staggering: 31,429 images from more than 120 countries, TIME reported. Every continent was represented, including Antarctica. A gallery shows some of the editors' favorites.
The Aug. 27 issue of TIME should be hitting newsstands within the next few days if you want to read the dead-tree version, likewise with the iPad version. The articles are online now, but you will need a subscription to access most of them.
