Perhaps the first reason is that I enjoy the immediacy of knowing 20 seconds after I take the shot, it can be online. That is a step ahead of even the Polaroid Swinger that my mother was fond of. Now rather than just on one single piece of smelly paper, my image can be viewed instantly just about anywhere on the globe where there's Internet access.
Secondly, my phone is always with me, so there's no need to remember to pick up another gadget. Of course, compactness comes at a price as there is no potential for optical zoom. I don't really go through life with zoom glasses, so I guess my 'Nexus One' can capture pictures from an everyday perspective. The pure advantage of it being built into my phone means that it is surely in my pocket whenever I leave the building. Lastly, and most importantly, I have become rather reliant on the post-processing filters that an app such as Picplz can offer. I may soon tire of trying to make an image appear as if it were taken on my first Brownie, or a 1970's Kodak Instamatic. Yet for now, I like taking an ordinary image and jazzing it up a bit. I think the edge-to-edge clearness of a modern digital camera makes picture taking a little boring.
These three simple reasons have made snapping pictures even more fun than in my youth. Back then, even if I developed the negatives myself, there was an substantial cost incurred each time I pressed the shutter. Today I walked around the block and felt a little bit creative for free. The image here, enhanced with the Russian Toy Camera filter, was taken at the west of the Columbia SkyTrain Station tunnel.