For a while, I thought about getting a Blackberry. They're really expensive, but I was rationalizing it like this: not only are they "really cool," but I needed it to organize my newly busy life. I wanted an electronic calendar and I was obsessed with the idea that I could be hooked into my email at any point during the day. Afterall, any even slightly type-A person needs that, don't they? I imagined looking like some formal business-woman on campus: miles above the rest of the students because I had a blackberry and an internship and a busy life that necessitated being connected to the whole world at all times.
Silly me, the whole world isn't in a Blackberry...but I kind of thought it was.
I guess blackberries are like online personal ads. They're like lying in bed next to someone just because it's a body, not because of the soul. Blackberries are like best friends, kind of how iPods are like a good nibble on the earlobe. Technology can be my boyfriend, and whenever I start to miss him, he's there to hook me in and hook me up. He eliminates the drama, the need to work hard...and if things start falling apart between us, he's easily understood with a manual or a 1-800 number that doesn't even use up minutes on my phone bill.
The problem with technology is that it becomes just that: for some of us, maybe all of us. Think of how much better we are at typing text messages than reading the pain in eachother's eyes. How we match our steps to the beat of the music and so forget to smile at the stranger passing by.
How the ease of impersonality makes the personal connections that much harder to read. How hooking into the world on a hand-held piece of plastic is now easier than hooking up with one person and comfortably holding hands.
posted by iliza @ 9:04 PM
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