Sitting in a park or a beach used to be a way to get some quiet time for reflection and meditation. That was before the wide spread use of not just cell phones, but the related ringtone technology. It’s no longer enough to have a phone ring to announce an incoming call. Users want to be able to customize every function, feature, and caller with its own unique sound.

The popularity of sites that let users download free ringtones is a testament to the appeal of the technology. Sure, caller ID has been available for decades on even traditional land lines. However, the ability to know from the ring itself who is calling is a convenience that most people can’t resist. They want to be able to tell from the tone or song snippet if their smart phone is receiving an actual call, a text message, an email, or a status update from a social media site without having to actually pick up the phone or even look at it.

Another appeal of ringtone customization is self expression. Especially in Western society , consumers want to be able to impose their personal preferences on the technology that they use. This takes the form of not only ringtones, but cell phone skins. Users will devote hours of their time hunting for the perfect ringtones, uploading the files, and then programming their phone to associate a different ringtone for each person in their contact list — safe in the knowledge that no other person will have exactly the same combination of tones as theirs.