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This new Breve smartphone champions self-destructing content

The internet's trend toward ephemerality is part practicality and part paradigm shift.
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

In the modern lexicon, it's obvs all about the abrevs.

In all seriousness, brevity has its benefits, especially in today's fast-paced, tech-infused society. Younger generations are enamored with acronyms, shorthand, and self-destructing content. These trends are part practicality (today's communication tools enable faster, more colloquial online conversation) and part paradigm shift.

Internet culture is increasingly embracing the ephemeral. Presumably, this stems from a backlash to the permanence of (occasionally embarrassing) online content, social media sites that are oversaturated with said content, and "curated online personas" that ultimately come across as disingenuous.

Ephemeral content (apps like Snapchat, features like Instagram Stories, and third-party Twitter apps that delete tweets after 24 hours) encourage users to relish experiences for what they are, instead of curating perfection online. The rise of live-streaming services also implies there's high user demand for 'in the moment' content as opposed to photos and videos that live on forever in the deep annals of the internet.

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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Breve is a bold new smartphone concept that embraces this emerging trend. This innovative device is the answer to what today's smartphone users crave: Impromptu interactions that replicate real-life communication.

Why ephemerality is here to stay

Self-destruction is no longer a term reserved for spy-film gadgetry; there has been a notable rise in apps and platforms focused around this very phenomenon. While the rise of self-erasing content is perhaps partially in response to privacy concerns (anybody who has accidentally stumbled upon a Facebook status they wrote 10 years ago has certainly experienced the mortifying repercussions of content permanence), it's also simply a reflection of real-world human behaviour.

In a New Yorker article entitled "Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and the Internet of Forgetting," author Casey Johnston writes that disappearing content is a way of "viewing the backstage footage rather than the rehearsed performance."

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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

This is the essential crux of the matter. Impromptu online interactions more accurately replicate real-life communication than something that has been painstakingly crafted to appear just so on social media. This lends an air of authenticity (there's another one of those darned millennial buzzwords) to online interactions.

Breve: The smartphone for a new era of social sharing

Breve is the world's first smartphone of its kind, the first device that truly embraces ephemerality. Content self-destructs after a few seconds, minutes, or hours, depending on user settings.

This device understands that your 10 a.m.-self and your 10 p.m.-self may be two very different sides of the same coin. So, you can pick and choose which settings to apply to various types of content. While your 'party personality' may opt to permanently delete those photos from last night, 'professional you' may choose to store data in Breve's secure servers to access at a later date. Breve not only allows for completely unique Android user sessions, it also adopts totally new behaviour to accommodate whatever "persona" suits your mood.

The phone prioritizes privacy, too: All user data is stored in Amazon's secure AWS servers. Or, if you feel like tapping into your inner secret agent, you may choose to encrypt your data and store it in the ultra-secured, atomic-proof bunkers in Switzerland.

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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

There are multiple use cases for such a device, from the personal to the professional. For example: sending bae an embarrassing video karaoke rendition of "your song," forwarding a sensitive document to a work colleague for their last-minute comments, or sharing videos of your kids that you'd prefer not to post online with friends and family members. Breve enables users to live in the moment without the distraction of a decidedly impersonal chunk of metal constantly getting in the way.

Want to learn more about Breve and how you can get your hands on this disruptive new device? Learn more about this exciting new smartphone concept on the Zenum Technologies website.

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