Selfies fade out as camera phones turn into smart assistants

Some oracles are predicting an end to the selfie this year. Are we starting to point our phones outwards, not inwards?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull takes a selfie with Japanese auto giant Honda Motor's humanoid robot Asimo.

Some oracles are predicting an end to the selfie this year. And, OK, there are also predictions that an asteroid will hit the earth, Donald Trump will become president and the All Ords will head back to its 2007 high. (Ha ha.)

But astute observers will have noticed something funny is happening when people raise their smartphones to take a photograph: increasingly, they are pointing the lens outwards, not back towards themselves.

For instance, the other day a parking inspector was busy photographing parking signs and numberplates in the city — that’s how they do it these days. Cameras have replaced form-filling, chalk marks and fights with drivers.

Then I flicked back through the photos on my phone and discovered the camera function had morphed from a family photo album into a life tool.

Here is a quick scroll through some of the photos: I went virtual shopping with my daughter, who was in hospital, and texted her half a dozen shots of shoes and dresses that might cheer her up.

I also have screen grabs of travel documents that airline staff asked me to take. I have shots of scratches on a hire car that were there before I drove off. There is a shot of a chair label that I sent via SMS to a repair shop and a photo of mould on a plant that made a visit to the nursery more hygienic, given I didn’t have to wave an infected cutting around the store.

There are pictures of my lounge room that I carried around decor shops, and lots of photos of wine labels, recipe ingredients, book titles and paint swatches — all of which have been on shopping trips.

When I started telling friends about the weird ways I use the camera on my phone, they all replied with their own stories of how they had outsourced chores to the camera function.

One carries around photos of all her documents (cards, licences, security pass, serial numbers); another photographs her car’s position in parking lots; another takes photos of her good hair days to take to the hairdresser; and one uses it as a wardrobe diary of what outfit she wore and when.

My favourite one was a young man who took a photo of a friend’s new puppy to a dog parlour so the shop assistant could find a Santa suit that would fit it.

And yes, Instagram is the shop front for an era of image communication, but apps are also being developed that trade on the camera function — from activating credit cards with photos of documents to translating foreign signs. Most of this ingenuity, however, has come from people thinking: “I know, I’ll take a photo of it” — and before they know it, they’ve outsourced their memory to their phone.

The idea that a function on a phone can be a life assistant may not have been on the whiteboard when techies combined the phone with a camera, but that’s what happens when humans and technology come together. Technology might be created by technicians but it’s re-created by its users.

The story of how we outsourced note taking to the camera echoes the way we took to SMS. When it was first designed, the short message service was thought of as an emergency form of communication, useful for technicians and emergency workers. And then teenagers got wind of it and the rest is history.

Like SMS, the mobile photograph is creating a new way with language. It can be a visual diary, a wordless threat, and a way of communicating where a mere punctuation mark next to a photo is worth a thousand words.

All this fun we’re having with photos makes the selfie look as exciting as a musty photo album. While some people are busy looking into their phone and seeing themselves, many others are pointing their phone at the world and seeing it in a whole new light.

In my pocket, I have a lawyer, a storage vault, a citizen cop, a trade quote, a decorator’s sample book, an insurance document, a shopping list, a translator and — best of all — a tool that turns a puppy into one of Santa’s little helpers.

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