I am newly obsessed with Mad Men, and you'll see why I mention this in a moment. Every character seems to have a cigarette permanently afffixed to their fingers, and while this fittingly retro touch repulses me, I also find it intriguing. There's a scene where Betty and Don have just had a Valentine's rendezvous, and as soon as they finish, Betty whips out a cigarette.It occured me to that if you just replaced the cigarette with a BlackBerry, that could be half the women (and men) I know. BlackBerries and, more recently, iPhones have become the cigarettes of the twenty-first century. We use them because they're cool and because everyone else has them. We use them when we're bored and don't know what to do with our hands.
Twenty years from now, maybe there will be conclusive evidence that mobiles devices our bad for our health. But we'll continue using them anyway. And because I know many of you share my love/hate relationship with technology, a few more musings about BlackBerries...
- Having a BlackBerry has changed the way I accessorize. Now, instead of lugging around a book or a couple of magazines, I carry my BlackBerry. Whenever I'm riding the bus, waiting for the subway, or find myself with unexpected downtime, I can catch up on news articles or RSS feeds. Not to say I've given up on books, but when you're carrying a tiny purse, it helps to have something small and compact to save space. Plus, it's easier to read the illuminated screen than a book late at night.
- Some of the shortcomings are shocking. My BlackBerry can predict what word I'm trying to type but it can't automatically adjust the clock when I switch time zones. Are you kidding me?! Admittedly, it's not that hard to reset the time zone manually, but when I traveled to Napa back in September, I was surprised to find that my phone was still set to Boston time. Remember to do this whenever you travel or you are in for major confusion!
- It's all about the extras. When I first bought a BlackBerry, they sold me with promises that I could tether my BlackBerry to my laptop and pick up a wireless signal where there wouldn't otherwise be a signal (mainly, I wanted to outsmart airports that charge $10/hour for internet). But it turns out that Verizon charges an extra $15/month for this service, a fact that the salesperson conveniently forgot to mention. And when I decided I needed something to protect my BlackBerry's screen from scratches, I went back to the Verizon store to see if they carried any products that could help. Surprisingly, they do not make such things for the BlackBerry Pearl, which is what I have. So I walked across the street to the T-Mobile store, and *surprise!* they do make such things and were happy to sell it to me. Figures.
Flickr photo by SheepGuardingLlama
8 comments:
My husband has a BlackBerry, and it drives me absolutely batshit crazy that he is constantly pulling it out and checking it when he should be paying attention to me.
He also checks it from the living room couch, despite the fact that his computer is a mere few paces away. The other day, he did it when we had company over. This was both rude and ridiculous.
Honestly? I daydream about stealing it and throwing it in a river or something.
Ah. The crackberry. I used to have one when I worked in the corporate world and can relate to the addiction. They are very handy.
Now that I'm crack-free, I don't really miss it, although I am online constantly instead.
How do you find the phone in the newer models? Is the sound quality good? My old blue one wasn't so great for that.
@Steph: you and my boyfriend could commiserate. But he's warmed up to my BlackBerry because on long car trips, I volunteer as his personal encyclopedia and look up whatever random stuff pops into his head (usually involving juicy steaks or sports stats so he can torture me). Now he thinks it's funny that we could be in the middle of rural Cali and be able to look up the star of some obscure 80s flop.
@Janet: I use skype for all my long conversations to stretch my minutes further, but the sounds quality of my BlackBerry is fine for my purposes.
This is hysterical, Susan! I had no idea you were a crackberry addict. ;)
What stephanerd mentioned is exactly why I've not caved in and bought either this or the iPhone. Too many connected people who are disconnected from their "realtime" surroundings. My stepson spent all last Christmas (15 days!) at the kitchen table (literally 6 to 8 hours at a stretch) on his iPhone. We moved him for dinner. He barely spoke with us the entire vacation! Not that that's altogether a horrible thing for us (he loves to be paid attention to, ironically), but it was as though we had a haunting - he wasn't really THERE.
I have the same love-hate relationship with technology. My husband kept trying to persuade me to get an iPhone, but I resisted. Then, when my regular (apparently, primitive) cell phone died, he convinced me to take his "old" iPhone so he could get the upgraded one. I have to admit, I secretly love it. But I find myself checking my email WAY more than necessary :P
I've never owned a Blackberry, but I did get the original T-Mobile sidekick when it first came out. I wound up turning it into a useful thing. I used it to write. If I was out and an idea popped into my head I would thumb-type away and email it to myself. I actually rarely use it for anything else except phone calls.
There's another Crackberry addict who's admitting to it! During my last five years in the corporate world, I was completely hooked on my Blackberry, but if I were really pressed to say if it had SUBSTANTIAL business value I'd say: probably not. I worked for a dot com where 95% of people didn't do any traveling, but were checking their e-mails obsessively when in a meeting 10 feet away from their cube. Of course, conducting meetings with everyone on their BB is hard. One of our product managers there actually had a basket that everyone put their BB in before the meeting. Smart idea.
Since my corporate BB divorce, I did get another BB (Pearl), but have chosen to save cost and sanity by not enabling e-mail or web. After all, I work from home, and I am always near a computer. When I am not, I don't really want to answer an e-mail from a say, new client, who wants a quote, which I can't do on my BB anyway. And BTW, my old BB with the full keyboard was so much better than the Pearl, where I am having trouble typing as there are several letters on each key -- yuck.
I have enjoyed being BB-e-mail-free, it makes me feel less stressed. I agree with Janet on the phone quality, which is not great. The thing gets totally hot and is not ergonomic, which is why I usually have a headset/microphone (but not a Bluetooth, really).
I was reminded of this post by the following article I just read titled "Bury me with my cell phone". It goes to show you can carry your Blackberry or cell phone a bit too far (pun intended)- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28182292/
Post a Comment