It’s rather unsettling to think of yourself as a crotchety tech basher, when you’re usually very pro-tech.
Yesterday, I had a stressful time trying to get enough interviews completed for my story during regular business hours, and I found myself cursing my lack of a smartphone so that I could check my e-mail every 30 seconds.
I had to keep dashing into random computer labs, logging onto a free computer, and then into my e-mail account to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. In between dashing off to offices hoping to ambush sources, that is! (Having a laptop is no better, wi-fi on campus still needs to be logged into; and that thing is bulky!)
This should have been the perfect excuse to justify a smartphone purchase finally, but today after having a chance to reflect on it I found I don’t want one (for now).
How much more stress would I have been under if I was constantly finding out that no one was contacting me back? How much less attention would I be paying to everything around me if I could surf the net everywhere I am? I would become one of those people who constantly checks their Crackberry, and I hate when people do that!
I’ve actually thought: “Bloody newfangled devices! They’re one of the reasons the news/world is so insane! Get off my lawn!”
Ok, maybe not in those exact words, but I was bemoaning the fact that they are making people around me even more obsessed with the minute (and often mundane) details of everything. Whatever happened to looking at the bigger picture?
Do I really need to be constantly seeking out bite-sized pieces of information?
Does anyone?
Probably not.
