I took some persuading to get one. You would think for someone in PR that the gadget that enabled you to keep in touch by phone, text and e-mail at all times would be a must.
Not so for me, until now. I think that there are times when it’s good not to be in contact (like driving and eating a banana, or when receiving serve, or at the vet, or just before the trumpet solo in A String of Pearls … or at a meeting with a client), and when it’s good to talk (as they say) rather than e-mail.
I was quite happy with a mobile phone that phoned, provided a voicemail service and was good for the occasional exchange by text. And it had a camera, but I never quite got the hang of that.
So I now have a Blackberry. It worked fine for a week, fortunately the week we were in Turkey, so I didn’t have to take a laptop, and it was painless to keep in touch. A dream in fact. Simplicity itself. I was hooked well and good.
Then Blackberry crashed. Boy, was I cross! Three weeks previously I didn’t have a Blackberry, and now I felt distraught, lobotomised, like a huge section of my ability to function properly had been removed.
Of course I thought it was only me; mine had been made on a Friday, so I adjusted the settings over and over, even though I could collect my e-mail anyway by the usual means.
Now it’s all hunky dory; normal service has been resumed. I’ve not switched, and don’t intend to. I hadn’t been a Blackberry loyalist long enough to feel I had been let down in any great way. But what this whole experience has told me is how rapidly and easily reliant we have all (apart from the dinosaurs) become on technology, mobile and otherwise – and is that a good thing? Are text and e-mail steadily destroying the art of verbal communication? And does it matter?
Enough said (or written in this case). Discuss.