Do you have mobile phones, social media accounts etc in your novel?

[Lensing]

For those of you who write stories in present time.
Do you include things like mobile phones in your stories?
Do you mention social media sites?
What other elements of modern life do you include in your story
playing today?

I just been thinking about that because the characters in my story have mobile phones but they
don´t use them often and it starts to feel unrealistic because in reality people use their phones
all the time. And I just mentioned Instagram and I´m not sure about that because I mentioned
it in a negative context, one of the characters is looking down on people who think they are
Instagram models and take selfies all the time. I´m not sure if that´s a good idea when I want
to publish that story one day.

[jesonrizabal]

ing down on people who think they areInstagram models and

Including mobile phones and social media in comics is not a bad thing. Don't be too concerned about how realistic it is in comparison to the current situation because we write from different perspectives. You're being creative, which is a good thing. My advice is to consider the scenario in terms of how applicable it is to your story rather than how realistic it is.

As writers, we always bring the readers along with us. Hope this helps!

[ShidoDraws]

Smartphones does appear in my story even if my story mostly takes place in a fantasy setting. My main character have used smartphones in the past even if I don't show it and she's aware of social media however, it is not necessary for me to ever bring it up because the reader doesn't need to know that yet.

[Lensing]

Thanks for the reply and input.
It´s very important for me that it feels real and I´m very descriptive about the settings, smells, sound
etc that´s why I just thought about it. Do you mention Whatsapp or Instagram in your stories and do
you think that could lead to legal issues?

[Kelheor]

Yes, sure. The second season of Hex takes place in 2006, so characters are using cellphones, which are also important for the story in a way. Next season they will probably use them less if there will be no need to show it, maybe there will be mentions of social medias at this point.
I think it's completely okay to not show the characters being always on phone though, if that's not the point of the story.
About Instagram - I don't know about traditional publishing, but if you want to publish it on Tapas/Webtoons, they will most definitely need you to change the name of it, it can be something still on the nose like Nstagram, Instagroo, etc.

[darthmongoose]

I use phones a lot in Errant. When I imagine how a character would act in any given situation, I often imagine what I'd do and often the answer is "use my smart phone". At first, it was like "Is this going to work, a Fantasy story where everyone has phones?" but then it turns out to be pretty fun, because people tweeting about monsters on their street is inherently funny.

Urien uses his phone as a torch in the prologue, which is the first time we see one being used in the comic.

Subo uses his phone to work out roughly where in the city Rekki is by searching on "sqroller", because she's famous, so of course people are talking about her. I came up with this because when I lived in London and there was a lot of noise outside or something, I'd search my area of London to see if people were talking about a police chase or a riot or something.

Rekki gets messaged by various people who want her to do things throughout the comic (often expressing annoyance or even dread about it), and even writes an apology text when she thinks she's about to die. She finds out about the masked campaigner called Crow because somebody sends a youtube video of one of their rallies.
I often use phones as a way for people to find out about things... but also to get the wrong idea about things. In Shakespeare, people frequently stumble across letters that are misleading in some way, and I think phone messages can be used to the same effect.

Both Rekki and Subo use their phones as alarm clocks (as a lot of people do) and I had fun having the UI and tone of Rekki's be unpleasant and aggressive, while Subo's is friendly and relaxing, to give a sense of the different pace of their mornings.

When Sarin isn't sure what to make of Jules (due to having seen a news video online where their whole demeanor seems villainous!), the first thing she does is what most millennials or zoomers would do: She looks them up online and browses their social media profile and recent posts.

Characters don't need to constantly be taking selfies or instagramming their food. Like my knights aren't always on their phones in the middle of fighting monsters... But if there's a place where it feels like it'd be logical to use your phone, people will.

[Lensing]

Thank you, that´s interesting.
I will have to look into this before publishing it, I have been threatened to be sued a couple of times
in my life

[darthmongoose]

Oh, and yeah, on the subject of names of social media, I made up my own with UI that is very similar to, but legally distinct from popular sites.

So the world of Errant has...

Sqroller (it's basically twitter) which is always a fun opportunity to have comic friends make cameos in the icons and usernames:

Snoopedia, which is...Wikipedia for snooping on people online complete with Racoon logo like you're pawing through people's rubbish... I also had to design the browser and OS for this page. The browser is called "Brewser"

And an unnamed IM client that's similar to Whatsapp and had a similar sort of UI...

For Emoji, which can be copyright, I always use openmoji, which is a fantastic free resource. When I need icons, I often use the Google Materials ones.

There are probably templates available for making fake socmed for comics and stuff online, but since I have a grounding in UI from my time working as a games artist and even occasional web designer, I tend to just build all mine from scatch, and it gives me a ton of freedom with giving it funny names and things.

[Lensing]

Thank you, also for showing how you include text messages. I maybe do something similiar in the illustrations of
my story

[Bella_Artz]

Yeah, my characters use phones a good amount to get news alerts and talk to each other a bunch. As for the social media platforms the two I've thought of so far are MeTok and Vistagram.

Ridiculous I know, but that's what I'm going for. Do whatever makes you happy with your story

[cherrystark]

I do. Technology is a must if you are doing a story set in the present day. I use texting as a story-telling tool in my work because it's the logical choice of action for many events. If a character goes missing - text them. The character needs to have a private conversation - they text. They need directions - text. In mystery shows, they use social media to track people's whereabouts. It's a part of life.

If your angle is more of the boomer mindset of "them kids are on their phones too much." I would change it. It doesn't have to be highlighted every second when the characters use their phones because as you said, we use them all the time. Even if we aren't on social media, there are a lot of apps people need to use daily for their health and safety, even for their work.

Talking about phones and social media in a negative context really isn't bring anything new to the table. Yes, there are a lot of seemingly mindless and entitled influencers out there. But there is an equal amount of computer-savvy influencer-type people who are quite intelligent with a strong business and marketing sense. So anyway, if the phone/social media isn't critical to the story, I'd leave it out.

[powerplantanimations]

Naota is an influencer (the worst kind).

The account returns in Nikado's flashback (thought this was a fun callback).

Here's the interesting thing. John, Naota's body, ALSO has an online presence. I wanna expand on this in another April Fools special. Like... Naota HAS to know about it. I've always wanted to do a comic where Naota tries to regain John's popularity or something but then he realizes that hey! The only reason people liked his original account was because of his money. People loved John because he was some country bumpkin.

Probably have to censor Twitch.

Read That Stick Figure Isekai | Tapas Web Comics

[DarkSena]

Mobile phones, yes. Also laptops since one the character is a programmer lol So yes, however I'm not planning to include anything like social media or such, just the phones, the easy way how the characters can (very occasionally) contact each other

[NickRowler]

I do have people using mobile phones and computers, but it's mostly for stuff like making calls, looking up stuff on Google or browsing when they are bored. I do plan on maybe have some jokes later about online gaming/streaming, I did have one character who likes playing a Roblox-like game.

I am for the most part going to avoid social media stuff. My characters are middle school age (12-13) and I don't think people that young should be on social media due to how intense and creepy adults can get on there.

[AaronBloodgood]

Yes! My light novel Marry X Princess is set in a hybrid fantasy world. There are kingdoms, castles, and magic--all of what you would expect. But there is also modern cities and a lot of modern technology, including smart phones and social media. I think it's really fun to get creative with what exists in the world and what doesn't.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Not a novel, but yes, there are phones (and will be social media) in my story For instance, here is my MC recording a short snippet of his life to be uploaded onto a video site XD

And ye, gonna agree with some others here that you don't have to show people using phones if it's not relevant to the story; people also use the bathroom all the time but it doesn't jump out at us as unrealistic when a story that doesn't depict that The important thing is to not forget that phones/social media/etc exist if you're writing a plot that could be easily solved if they just used the darn thing

[Lensing]

That´s all true, people don´t go on the toilet 16 hours every day though and many people use their
phones the whole day. I have only mentioned phones and social media so far.
And yes, readers can also imagine the phones like every other detail which doesn´t have
to be described. I also don´t mention that they wear pants

[TheLemmaLlama]

... I don't know where you live, but people where I'm from don't use their phones 16 hours a day, if that's what you're implying But yeah, it's not necessary for a novel to mention pants every time someone wears a pair, for instance

[system]

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