My Two Cents: 'Pinning' down students' BlackBerry obsession
Kate Barker
Issue date: 9/22/09 Section: Opinion
Anyway, before long I was walking out of the store with a brand new BlackBerry Tour. I took it home, hurriedly sent my pin along to friends, downloaded Facebook for BlackBerry and anxiously waited for my life to become perfect.
I'll admit it now: I'm in way over my head.
The first shock was the sheer quantity of notifications. I'm all for the idea of having the world at one's fingertips, but I'm decidedly less into being awoken at 4:02 in the morning to a buzzing notification that my quasi-acquaintance's friend from home has also commented on a Facebook picture that I wrote "haha" under last fall. Prioritizing has taken on new meaning. In the past I was able to look at a grouping of received texts, decide which person I wanted to reply to first, and act accordingly. Now I feel like my phone is a mini ER, and I am the triage nurse.
Though I would love to respond to a text, I feel the pressing need to first attend to a 'BBM' so as to avoid offending a sender who can see I've read it. And while in the midst of a reply BBM, my e-mail often interrupts with an Incident Alert involving three students and an armed gunman just two blocks from my house. And how am I not going to click through to that?
It's dizzying, and frankly I'm not quite sure I'm cut out for it. I'm walking around with a phone that is Microsoft Excel compatible, and the last time I spreadsheet-ed anything was in a computer science class freshman year.
And my teacher can tell you how well that went for me. As is often the case, I have to think that the BlackBerry/iPhone obsession is just another example of our generation getting ahead of itself, of wanting to be grown up before we actually, officially are. I won't argue that it's not convenient, but is it necessary?
It may be fitting to conclude with this: Just thirty seconds ago, I swear to you, I had a clever ending to this article. But in the time it took me to look down at my buzzing phone and read a meaningless "Event Invitation" from a Facebook group I didn't know I was a member of, it has been lost on me.
I rest my case.
I'll admit it now: I'm in way over my head.
The first shock was the sheer quantity of notifications. I'm all for the idea of having the world at one's fingertips, but I'm decidedly less into being awoken at 4:02 in the morning to a buzzing notification that my quasi-acquaintance's friend from home has also commented on a Facebook picture that I wrote "haha" under last fall. Prioritizing has taken on new meaning. In the past I was able to look at a grouping of received texts, decide which person I wanted to reply to first, and act accordingly. Now I feel like my phone is a mini ER, and I am the triage nurse.
Though I would love to respond to a text, I feel the pressing need to first attend to a 'BBM' so as to avoid offending a sender who can see I've read it. And while in the midst of a reply BBM, my e-mail often interrupts with an Incident Alert involving three students and an armed gunman just two blocks from my house. And how am I not going to click through to that?
It's dizzying, and frankly I'm not quite sure I'm cut out for it. I'm walking around with a phone that is Microsoft Excel compatible, and the last time I spreadsheet-ed anything was in a computer science class freshman year.
And my teacher can tell you how well that went for me. As is often the case, I have to think that the BlackBerry/iPhone obsession is just another example of our generation getting ahead of itself, of wanting to be grown up before we actually, officially are. I won't argue that it's not convenient, but is it necessary?
It may be fitting to conclude with this: Just thirty seconds ago, I swear to you, I had a clever ending to this article. But in the time it took me to look down at my buzzing phone and read a meaningless "Event Invitation" from a Facebook group I didn't know I was a member of, it has been lost on me.
I rest my case.
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