The Smartphone — A Modern Wonder of the World

It was an ordinary Tuesday afternoon when the teacher suddenly placed a smartphone on his desk with a dramatic gesture. He pointed at it, looked around the room, and asked: “What do you see here?” A few hands shot up.

“An iPhone!” someone called.

“A Samsung,” another joked.

The teacher smiled and nodded slowly.

“Yes. A smartphone.
But I prefer to call it a wonder of the world. Because just like the pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China, this is a masterpiece of human hands. And today, I want to ask you three simple questions about this wonder.” He wrote on the board:

1. What is it made of?

“Think about it,” he said.“What materials are inside? A battery filled with rare metals. Chips made of silicon. Glass stronger than any window glass you’ve ever seen… and all those parts come from different corners of the earth.They’re dug from the ground, refined, engineered, and assembled. Every little screw, every tiny wire was imagined and created by human beings.”

2. Who worked on it?

He looked around the room. “Who do you think made this? One genius? A small group of smart people? No… thousands of people! Designers, programmers, miners, factory workers, truck drivers, marketers. People from dozens of countries who may never meet each other yet they worked together to build this wonder.”

3. What can you do with it?

The teacher picked up the phone and held it high.“Imagine showing this to someone just a hundred years ago. They’d think you were performing magic! Talking live with someone on the other side of the world. Looking up all of humanity’s knowledge in seconds. Listening to music, watching movies, finding your way when you’re lost… This is a gateway to knowledge, to connection, to possibility.”

He set the smartphone down again and looked around, his face serious. “And now,” he said softly.

“The last question: what do we actually do with it?

And what do you do with it?” There was silence.

And then someone muttered quietly:

“Texting…”

“Gaming…”

“Tiktok…” The teacher nodded slowly.

“That’s the difference. We hold a wonder of the world in our hands and use it as a toy. Think about that: you carry a wonder in your pocket. What will you do with it?”

✨ Food for thought:

You carry a wonder of the world. How do you use it? Just for games and gossip? Or to make yourself and the world wiser, smarter, and richer?