Smartphones ‘open the door’ to social networking

Smartphones are opening up social media to people on the move, says one expert.

The devices – such as Apple iPhone and Research in Motion BlackBerry – are making it easier for individuals to update their status and check out friend’s recent photo albums anywhere in the world.

Jennifer L Jacobson, director of public relations at Retrevo.com and social media author, believes that the gadgets will benefit those who do not have access to a desktop or laptop.

She said that smartphones are "opening doors into social media in emerging markets [and] making social media ultra-portable. This portability is part of what makes social media so available and at times addictive".

I’m sure we’ve all noticed a difference on our homepage now certain friends can access networking sites from a mobile device.

We get hourly – sometime half-hourly – updates on what they are doing and where they have been.

So although using the smartphone will make it easier to stay in touch with friends, surely it will lead to an irrelevant information overload?

Ms Jacobson doesn’t seem to think so: "There are still many people who are MIA; who have a Facebook or Twitter account, but rarely, if ever, do anything with it."

A study by electronics website Retrevo aimed to find out how many people use social networking sites and where.

Figures show that nearly half of internet users check these types of websites in the morning, 40 per cent wouldn’t mind being interrupted for an electronic message and seven per cent would check a message during an intimate moment.

Is the smartphone the way forward then? Or do we think it will just add insult to injury by encouraging more unnecessary status updates?