Working in IT, you'd think I would be more interested with what technology brings us - all the little neat gizmos and websites people come up with that change the way we kill hours of valuable time each day. Yet, in my eyes, most of it seems to be crap.
Enter the Blackberry. I got one recently for work. At first I was reluctant because I cringe everytime I see a douchebag thumbing out an email while ordering a sandwich from the supermarket deli. But, for work reasons, it made sense to be even more reachable (having a cellphone wouldn't cut it - some folks consider calling someone's cellphone too much a chore).
Aside from the surface issues I have with a cellphone that's apparently most engaging when people should be steering their two-ton vehicles, I ran across some new issues of my own:
Overkill: The device has so many features and applications, it takes twelve button presses just to get to the "make a call" screen. You've got serious product issues when the weakest, least convenient feature of a smart phone is calling people.
Pin Keys: The button layout may have worked for the Asian children that manufacture these things, but I can't seem to type a sentence without mashing for of five keys at a time.
Random calls: With the keys on the outside, tossing the device in your pocket is a guarantee you'll be making some random calls. This is the craziest thing of all in my mind. I've done it myself, and I've received calls from other people who leave long voicemails that never realized their phone had made a call. I got to listen in on one guy neurotically discussing his blood sugar with someone else. Toward the end of the voicemail, I was almost genuinely concerned for the stranger. Damned guy left me hanging!
Ethics of Technology
You know how in the movies when the crazy mad scientist experiment on gene splicing with farm animals comes up with a crazy invention, there's always that question "just because I can do something, does it necessarily mean I should?" I know money drives everything, but honestly, was man meant to conduct correspondence from a highway rest stop bathroom stall? In the days of quill and ink, could you imagine a legendary figure like Thomas Jefferson handwriting a parchment letter to his friend saying something like "OMG - france is being so difficult 4 sure"?
Have you ever received a meaningful note from anyone by Blackberry? Usually it's mispelled, barely english sentence fragments adding on to an existing conversation. "Can u do this?", "Yes, I agree", or "See u later - thanks" is what I'm used to seeing. I know the device has it's merits, but personally, I think they should have developed the feature to read email and left at that. Pretending that anything typed by thumb is "communication" is like caling that piezo-electric ring tone on your 1990's cell phone "music": yeah, but no.
Twitter. Seriously? C'mon. Really?
Speaking of ruining meaningful communication, I have to take a moment to recognize I'm already a part of it. Let's be honest, whether 5 or 50 people read this site (it could happen), I could definitely be doing better things with my time (spending time with my XBOX 3.... my family chiefly comes to mind), and if I really had something important to say, I'd formalize it, spell check it, and send that it to Cat Fancy for first rights publication fees.
However, I'm writing into the same world of small individual users who want the same attention and adoration from bored Internet surfers like you. It takes some effort to put a blog together, and I can respect that. What I can't respect is Twitter. What is Twitter? you may ask (if you haven't already Googled it). One way to explain it, it's blogging for speed junkies with ADD. It's a blog comprised of short one or two sentence posts illuminating the public about a person's daily life.
Got groceries. radish is a funny word. I think my cashier is a lesbian.
Man people drive slow. I can't stand people who can only do one thing at a ti...
And so on. The site sells the idea that there are people quite interested in that ham sandwich you ate yesterday or the line you're standing in at a Pharmacy, and encourages you to thumb out these tidbits of your daily routine on your phone. It's the ideal forum for people that want the attention of a blog and enjoy tinkering with their cell phones but don't have the patience to write in complete or connected thoughts.
I know the Internet is a playground home for the entertaining and the unimportant, but what are you seriously accomplishing in your life if you spend time reading about someone's morning routine? In the old days, this is what conversations were for. If you're able to "Twitter" on your phone, you're probably able to make a call on it as well. If Marcy needs to know about your bowel movements, try giving her a call sometime.
And really, if something's not important enough to write more than two sentences on, is it really important enough to write at all?
