When thinking about a technological advancement that has helped me on a daily basis, I initially wanted to jump to text messaging. But after some thought, I've decided that texting can be as hindering and annoying as it can be useful. So my mind wandered to other options. Email. And specifically emailing on a smartphone. That is an advancement that is helpful to a wide range of users, students, professors, business men and women, families, bosses, far away friends, etc.

Email has been around for a awhile, since the late '60's (correct me if I'm wrong) but emailing from a phone is still a relatively new concept. Obviously people below the age of 12 might not need to send or check emails on a high tech phone but, for the rest of us, this is something we do multiple times a day. I'm going to take a moment to work on my sales skills but bear with me: Think about it. Don't you have that moment almost once a day where you think, "Oh *#!#, I forgot to tell so-and-so to do this!" or "Crap. My assignment is late." Then you whip out your phone, pull up browser, shoot a quick email and BAM. It's taken care of. And it is in no way annoying, like text messages. Emails are much calmer. We don't expect immediate responses. We don't read too much into email lingo. And who uses emoticons? Maybe if you're emailing your mom. Do you want to be alerted if you receive new emails? That's fine, your phone can do that for you. If you would rather not be bothered and check it on your own time, that's fine too.
Beautiful. A wonderful union between phone and email. Working harmoniously together.
Let's divorce texting.

On a personal note, I was unable to use my computer for the first few days back at school. I had to take it to  someone savvier than I to download new anti-virus software and get stuff up and running. I also came down with an outrageously high fever and the flu. I was lying in bed with no computer (my roommate forgot her power cord back in Chi-town), sickly, wondering how I was going to let my professors know, then *epiphany!* I used my new iPhone to email them. And it really saved my butt that day.
So thank you, person who made it possible to log on to our email via our phones. I guess I should really be thanking the person who made internet on a phone possible. That's all you really need. Anyway, I appreciate it.