by Jacob Harkins

I just bought a Blackberry. It may have been the worst decision of my life. It’s sleek and grey and actually pretty darn small. I can email, talk, text, web surf and pay my mortgage with it. To think, after the mail in rebate (which I’ll never return), this phone cost me only $50.

It seemed like a great deal at the time.

Or so I thought when I left the cell phone store just a few weeks back. It turns out, the cost is much more expensive: I’ve lost my freedom.

Every time an email comes to my Gmail, my phone vibrates. Missed call, another buzz. Voicemail and it rattles the papers on my desk loud enough that I can hear from clear across the room. There’s always the temptation to check ESPN.com, work email, bank statements and the day’s weather.

I suspect I am not alone.

Whether out to dinner, flying up or down Interstate 25, or in a city park, I see it everywhere. Kids, adults, college students and everyone else, eyes glazed and directed toward a two-inch screen being controlled by a thumb or pointer finger. We hadn’t even settled on proper etiquette for regular cell phone use before the mobile Internet/computer/phones such as iPhones, Blackberries, Palms and Qs stared their epic takeover.

The growing list of my cell phone pet peeves has now been crumpled up and tossed into the recycling receptacle near my desk.

It’s time for a whole new list, one that could easily outpace its predecessor:

Web surfing and driving: Sending a text message while speeding toward Denver on I-25 at 85 miles an hour was a bad idea. Checking Denver Nuggets scores, scooping MySpace profiles and making online dinner reservations while driving is about as safe as dangling a baby outside of a 10th-floor apartment window.

Emailing while ordering calamari: Just because you can respond to that email asking about progress on your TPS reports with the quick touch of a screen, doesn’t mean you should do so when sitting down for dinner, lunch or any other meal. This suggests a level of class equal to that of the nine University of Colorado fraternity pledges who destroyed an Estes Park motel a month ago.

Picking through photos while ordering a venti Americano: Sure it’s really cool that these high tech telephones can hold oodles of family photos and pics from a night out on the town, but surfing through them while ordering a cup of coffee is as annoying as watching the progress of the mega mass transit Light Rail project.

Every other absurd trait that has popped up in the cell phone era: Texting at dinner, answering the phone during a movie, forgetting to memorize important people’s phone numbers and relying on caller ID instead of voicemail.
Society’s manners and reality continue to erode thanks to cell phones more powerful than some older computers.

Sigh, the economy is going down the tube, we’ve been at war for more than five years, there’s a massive political movement going on, and America is transfixed on little more than their phones.

We should all give up on iPhones and Blackberries, and burn them in a big bon fire.

You go first. My Pearl will be right behind once I finish checking this weekend’s entertainment bill at the Fox.

April 2008

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