I think I must be the last person in America to not have a Blackberry. Of course my mother has never had an answering machine and my sister doesn’t do email, so perhaps I’m one of the last three people in America to not have a Blackberry, or some other form of constant connection to all and sundry.
There are times when it would be helpful to find something on Google, particularly when I’m lost (and late). I would like to send an email from the road on occasion or look up something to win a bet with my husband. Yes, having instant access to my calendar and catching critical emails on the spot has its appeal, but something is holding me back. It’s Blackberry Addiction.
Every day I see perfecctly normal men and women sitting together at a restaurant, texting people who aren’t there and ignoring the person they are sitting with. Which is okay I guess because that person is texting somebody else anyway. So why are they bothering to have lunch? Then there is the Blackberry Fondling, where a person will agonize over the proper placement of their Blackberry on the table, moving it several times until it is just so, then stroking it! What is that all about?
I’m also worried about my thumbs. Surely all that rapid fire typing with two thumbs on a keyboard smaller than a business card can’t be good for you. And that brings up my total inability to type more than 4 words a minute on my current cell phone, a huge come down from my current 70 words a minute via a real keyboard. I assume I would improve over time but heaven help me if it doesn’t have spell check.
I have to admit that my primary motivation to buy a Berry is peer pressure. At a mastermind meeting a few months ago, two of the young-and-restless attendees fell out of their chairs in hilarity (we drank a bit to help ideas flow) when I checked my schedule using a PDA. Hey, at least it was electronic! Now I can’t bring myself to take my PDA out in public. But at least I’ve never been driven to fondle it. Even my eighty-one-year-old friend and fellow coach has an Apple iPhone! Fortunately she is polite (and sober) enough to not laugh at me.
Here’s my dilemma: my little-cheap-normal cell phone is showing signs of imminent demise. I am technology enabled enough (hey, I blog and have two websites so give me a break) to believe I can’t survive without a cellphone for any length of time, so I need to be making plans for replacement. Do I jump on the Berry-go-round and join the next generation of technology or hang tight to my right to go to the mall and not text five friends about it?
Tune in next week to find out!
