Blackberry, the Experiment Begins

Blackberry, the Experiment Begins

Like so many others I was worried about my phone addiction. I didn't need any numbers to pontificate or graphs to compare, I simply knew it was time to put it down. I became the dashboard.

Quality time had devolved into a roomful of adults, and sadly kids, all stuck to their screens and their chairs and their thoughts.

So like many others I decided to do something about it.

Something drastic. No patches, no gums, just cold turkey.

I bought a Blackberry.

I had help. Two weeks ago my phone and I said good night, as every night and together we fell into a peaceful sleep. In the morning however, only one of us woke up. It was an odd, no drama death for a device, at least in my experience. It simply went to sleep and never woke up.

It is certainly not without sadness, holding a cold lifeless smartphone, but not because I attributed any lifeforce to it, but simply because it won't on it's own rot and give itself back. Dead as it is, it has nothing to offer. We all know this, perhaps you have a drawer somewhere filled with this.

So the #Blackberry experiment began. Thankfully I got no noise from the AT&T rep. It was not expensive. I figure she assumed I would just return it in a few days. This was my intention, or at least I assumed I would return it. Yet I still have it.


Do I still have it because it's better? Whoa now, first things first. When you get an email from me (and this thing does email spectacularly) and it says "Sent from my Blackberry 10 smartphone" don't believe that. It's not a smartphone for me. I'm just a smart guy with a phone.

I can't even begin to compare it to the iPhones, Androids and Windows Phones I have had over the years. Not better or worse, but different, certainly different.

This thing is, and for me only, a communications workhorse. Calling, texting, emailing, Social Media-ing, check. It has a browser. After that, I simply put the phone down.

So I pared down, but am able to keep in touch because you can't fall off the face of the earth anymore. We need this connection, not to feel alive or be fulfilled, but to do things like gets jobs and pay rents.

I have found that the above functions, the keeping in touch stuff, doesn't take much time. Then you can put down the dummy brick and communicate directly with the people around you. And that is fulfilling and that's what's going to keep me alive.

 

Written by

Matthew Clarke, CC