In this blog post, I’ll look back on how the university has changed since I returned to school, as well as the rise and fall of laptops, USB flash drives, and PDAs, to examine how smartphones have transformed students’ lives and what role they will play in the future.
It’s been a while since I returned to campus, and I’ve noticed that the school has changed in many ways.
The most striking change is the new buildings I’ve never seen before. When I was a student, the New Engineering Building—nicknamed “Super 301 Building” after the “Super 301” class—was a brand-new structure, but now I see that Building 500 has even been constructed. There are even coffee shops like Twosome Place inside. A coffee shop on campus? Back in the day, the student council would likely have been outraged, protesting, “How can a commercial coffee shop exist in this sacred place of learning?”
The students I see in class have changed a lot, too. Even though it’s only natural that they look different—given that nearly a decade separates them from the fresh-faced freshmen—the way they actively ask professors questions is quite different from how we used to be, and I find it somewhat enviable. Perhaps it’s because I only realized the importance of communication and the power of asking questions after entering the workforce.
Another change that surprised me most—as a computer science major—was the sight of laptop screens open on every desk during class. Back when I was in school, laptops were expensive, heavy, and cumbersome, so not many students used them. But now, thanks to advances in wireless networks, low-power technology, and semiconductor technology, it’s become possible to carry small, convenient laptops at relatively affordable prices.
By comparing how students have changed between before I took a leave of absence and after I returned to school, I examined which computer technologies have transformed our lives and pondered how much—and in what ways—smartphones, which were a hot topic in society at the time, would change students’ lives. Looking back now, I see that some of my predictions from back then have come true, while others have developed in directions completely different from what I anticipated.
First, USB flash drives are an example of a device that became as widely adopted as laptops. When I was in school, I sometimes submitted reports on floppy disks and burned CDs to share videos with friends. Otherwise, I had to carry around external hard drives, which were expensive, bulky, and prone to frequent breakdowns. Then, USB flash drives began to gain popularity; when I first encountered them, they were marvelous devices—barely the size of a finger yet capable of storing just about any kind of data. Since then, I’ve rarely burned CDs, and it’s now become difficult to even find floppy disks in everyday computing environments.
Although USB flash drives have since seen significant increases in storage capacity and become even smaller, the widespread adoption of smartphones, cloud storage, and online file-sharing services has greatly reduced the need for students to carry them around as they once did. In other words, the change brought about by USB flash drives wasn’t merely the miniaturization of a single storage device; it can be seen as a step in the process of transforming the very way we store and transfer data. As a computer science major, I can’t help but feel a deep sense of pride knowing that advancements in this field are influencing our daily lives in this way.
In contrast to this inspiring story, there’s a device that briefly appeared and then vanished: the PDA. A PDA was a small computer focused on portability, and in many ways, its concept wasn’t significantly different from today’s smartphones. Before I took a leave of absence from school, I even saw a few upperclassmen and one of my classmates using them. As a computer science student, I was incredibly curious about them, but as you know, PDAs never achieved widespread success. Even Apple, under Steve Jobs’ leadership, introduced the Newton MessagePad—a PDA-style device—but it didn’t achieve significant commercial success. One reason for their failure was that the tasks a PDA could perform were limited, and they were also expensive. Later, “PDA phones”—which combined a PDA with mobile phone functionality—were released, but these also failed to achieve significant success. While the addition of phone functionality provided an important use case, mobile phones themselves were evolving rapidly at the time, and PDA phones—whose calling and texting features were less convenient compared to regular mobile phones—were pushed out of the market.
Now, let’s talk about what a smartphone is. While smartphones are linked to the evolutionary history of PDAs and PDA phones, it’s important to recognize that today’s smartphones are far more complex devices than can be explained simply as these two devices with added internet capabilities. Smartphones have evolved into portable computing devices capable of accessing the web via mobile networks and wireless internet, installing applications to add various functions, and equipped with cameras, GPS, various sensors, high-performance processors, and large storage capacities. Although it was possible to access the internet on standard cell phones at the time, there was a significant difference in that the internet environment provided by smartphones was much closer to the web and application environments used on computers. Today, smartphones allow users to perform countless tasks—such as web searches, watching videos, using messaging apps, financial transactions, payments, maps, taking photos, and creating documents—which is why they have evolved beyond being mere “internet-enabled cell phones” to become essential computing devices in everyday life. According to 2025 GSMA data, 54% of the global population owns a smartphone, and as of 2024, 4.7 billion people were using mobile internet via personal devices.
So, how widespread are smartphones among students?
At the time, one of the reasons PDAs failed to gain widespread adoption—the perception that “there isn’t much you can do with a PDA”—was thought to be largely resolved once smartphones were combined with the internet and applications. In fact, this prediction was largely accurate. While PDAs struggled to gain traction, the internet continued to make tremendous strides and became an integral part of daily life not only for students but for nearly everyone. People came to rely on the internet for many aspects of their lives, and smartphones evolved into devices capable of an endless array of tasks thanks to the power of the internet and apps.
During class, students could access Wikipedia or various online resources to look up things they didn’t know; during breaks, they could read the news no matter where they were sitting; and they could even view photos and leave comments on their friends’ Cyworld pages. At the time, this was a tremendous advantage. However, one might have wondered whether the increased ability to perform tasks on the go—tasks that were originally done on computers—truly offered a level of convenience comparable to that of a USB flash drive.
Looking back now, the impact of the smartphone can be seen as far greater than that of a USB flash drive—to the point where the two are hardly comparable. While a USB flash drive conveniently changed the way data is stored and transferred, the smartphone has vastly expanded the range of tasks a single device can perform across various areas, including communication, information search, finance, payments, photos and videos, navigation, social networking, work, and learning. Smartphones are particularly significant because they didn’t simply miniaturize the functions of traditional computers; rather, they created new services and usage patterns tailored to the mobile environment. A 2025 GSMA survey also revealed that mobile internet users very frequently utilize messaging apps, online calls, video calls, social media, video streaming, and online entertainment.
Now, let’s consider the fact that smartphones are portable computers. Could they replace laptops, which are also computers? At the time, I thought it wouldn’t be easy. Laptops were often carried around primarily because they were needed for attending lectures. The small screen and inconvenient input methods posed problems when trying to replace that need with a smartphone. Who would view a lecture presentation on such a small screen and take notes with their thumbs?
While this assessment was largely correct, the fact that smartphones cannot completely replace laptops is different from the fact that they do not compete with laptops. Even today, laptops and desktops remain more convenient for writing long texts, working on complex documents, or running multiple programs simultaneously. On the other hand, smartphones are far more convenient for sending short messages, searching for information, viewing photos and videos, watching online lectures, and using various applications. Ultimately, rather than completely replacing one another, smartphones and laptops have evolved into a relationship where they divide roles based on their intended use.
Given these factors, I thought at the time that it would be difficult for smartphones to become as widely adopted among students as USB flash drives or laptops. However, in reality, their adoption spread much faster than expected. For students, smartphones have become more than just mobile phones; they are devices that integrate various functions—such as internet access, learning tools, communication tools, content consumption devices, schedule management tools, cameras, and payment methods—all into a single device. As of 2025, 58% of the global population is using mobile internet on their own devices, and smartphone penetration rates have also reached high levels worldwide.
So, conversely, what must be done for smartphones to appeal to students?
To address this, we need to examine the origins of the smartphone. Amid the struggles of PDA phones, a product called the BlackBerry emerged, and it can be viewed as having played a significant role in the popularization of smartphones. However, it is not entirely accurate to call the BlackBerry the first smartphone. Generally, the Simon Personal Communicator, released by IBM in 1994, is considered an early representative smartphone, and subsequently, various PDA phones, the BlackBerry, and the iPhone all influenced the evolution of smartphones. BlackBerry gained significant market recognition by specifically targeting office workers and emphasizing features such as the ability to check and send emails, along with mobile communication capabilities. Students might wonder, “What’s the big deal about email?” but once they enter the workforce, they realize just how frequently email is used and how convenient it is to check and compose emails while on the go.
Given this track record of products that succeeded by clearly targeting specific user groups, it was natural to consider at the time whether we should create a smartphone specifically for students. We believed that by equipping it with features tailored to students—such as a student planner app and group study apps—and making it competitively priced, we could appeal to them. In fact, after smartphones became mainstream, these types of features were not limited to separate, student-only smartphones but were absorbed into the ecosystem of general smartphones and apps. As students gained access to the features they needed—such as schedule management, messaging, collaborative document editing, online lectures, and school-related services—on their smartphones, the need for a separate “smartphone for students” product disappeared. Ultimately, while we once wondered how deeply smartphones would penetrate students’ lives, today’s smartphones have moved beyond the stage of simply needing to appeal to students; they have become essential computing devices that are naturally used in various aspects of daily life, including learning, communication, information search, and leisure.
