sebastian white online - the curse of the blackberry

About Me

Photos | Writing

Search | Home

Bereft of BlackBerrys, the Untethered Make Do

"Where were you when the BlackBerrys went out?" asks the New York Times today. I was getting ready for bed when mine went out, and I didn't even realize there was an outage until the next morning when my brother checked up on me -- he knew I couldn't go long without my Berry.

"The BlackBerry blackout was grueling to many — and revealed just how professionally and emotionally dependent so many people had become on their pocket-size electronic lifelines."

One user told the paper, “I started freaking out,” he said. “I started taking it apart. Turning it off. Turning it on. I took the battery out and cleaned it on my shirt. I was running around my hotel like a freak. It’s very sad. I love this thing.”

The Globe and Mail quoted a Bay Street broker as saying, "It was like a bunch of guys hanging around a narcotics anonymous meeting, completely cut off from their information."

Posted by Sebastian / April 19, 2007 /

The High Price of Addiction

My infamous CrackBerry addict friend, whom I've written about before, dropped his little device into the toilet of a New York City bar last night. What does one do when they drop their phone in such an unfortunate spot? He fished it out to recover the SIM card.

Posted by Sebastian / May 23, 2006 /

Let's all get ADD

The San Francisco Chronicle today has an article that every BlackBerry/cellphone/email addict should read: “No one is getting enough sleep. No one is getting enough sleep because everyone is so damned stressed. Everyone is so damned stressed because everyone has way, way too much to do and far too little time in which to do it."

"Everyone has way too much to do and far too little time in which to do it because modern technology has made us a thousandfold more accessible and more wired up and more media drenched and able to communicate in 157 different instant digitized ways, has given us entree to so much astounding information at so much faster and more unbearable rates that it has, in effect, compressed time into sweaty slippery little knots we are forever trying to untie as quickly as we possibly can even though we can't."

Posted by Sebastian / Technology / March 10, 2006 /

Tapped out users get 'BlackBerry Spa'

It's appropriate that Canada.com has a story on the pains of BlackBerry Thumb today because just this morning I was struggling to type on my traditional keyboard because of the repetitive stress my BlackBerry has inflicted on my left-hand thumb. I can't hit the space bar anymore! But I'm not alone in having overworked digits.

"With the number of Blackberry users continuing to rise, one Toronto spa is hoping to cash in on what it thinks will be the next big thing: Blackberry massages."

"For just $80 -- and with soft music and calming sounds of nature as a backdrop -- professional masseurs will focus on the areas most affected by the constant tapping: forearms and thumbs."

• RIM, the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry, says its product is so vital to the continuity of the U.S. Government that the patent infringement suit against it should be dropped

Posted by Sebastian / January 17, 2006 /

A high tech ball and chain

You've got to love when internal memos end up in the hands of reporters, and this one is a gem. Brian Bixby, a partner at the Boston law firm of Burns & Levinson circulated a memo to his department, reminding his attorneys that CrackBerrys are not playthings.

''They are not just accessories or collectors' items," Bixby wrote in his memo, which was sent anonymously to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. ''They are not to be used only when you feel like sending an e-mail. They are supposed to make you more accessible for receiving e-mails after hours and on weekends."

• My usual BlackBerry rant

Posted by Sebastian / December 22, 2005 /

BlackBerry to be spared?

Things haven't been looking good for the future of the BlackBerry in the United States after repeated patent-infringement rulings filed in U.S. courts against Research in Motion, the handheld's manufacturer, have been lost by the Canadian company. But now the U.S. Government has gotten involved and filed briefs in a Virginia court saying that if a shutdown of the BlackBerry service is ordered (which is seen as the best remedy by NTP Ltd., which is suing RIM), "it is imperative that some mechanism be incorporated that permits continuity of the federal government's use of BlackBerry devices." There are more than 200,000 government BlackBerry users.

Speaking of CrackBerrys, I went out to dinner last week at a new Boston restaurant with the infamous BlackBerry addict (you know who you are!). We hadn't seen each other in ages, but he remains addicted to the little all-in-one. At the risk of being repetitive and unoriginal, I am going to republish below one of my favourite BlackBerry quotes that I often refer to when I am in the company of people unable to put theirs down:

"Fewer and fewer of us appear capable of doing what used to be called being in the moment," Christie Blatchford wrote in the Globe and Mail. "People now want to be in several moments simultaneously, with, I would argue, the result that they are properly in none."

"The essence of being in the moment means being caught up in the presentness of the present such that you are deaf and blind to everyone and everything else, including the nagging voice of past experience and the ringing alarm bell of future consequence. It is what makes for the best spontaneous gatherings, the most exciting love and the most remarkable memories -- those times when you give yourself over fully to the very taste of another mouth, the look of the slice of sky over your head, the feel of a summer's wind on your face, or even the chemistry of a particular party."

Posted by Sebastian / November 14, 2005 /

The agony of BlackBerry Thumb

The thumb on my left hand has been rendered practically useless for days now, sitting there lifeless as I suffer the pain and agony of BlackBerry Thumb. The solution, apparently, is to pound out only the shortest of messages. As a professor at Cornell who specializes in ergonomics points out, "If you're trying to type 'War and Peace' with your thumbs, then you're going to have a problem."

• More on my BlackBerry Woes

Posted by Sebastian / October 31, 2005 /

Disconnect, dammit!

The Globe's Ellen Goodman brings up an interesting perspective on one of my most beloved topics: getting people to disconnect from their cell phones and CrackBerrys and pay attention to others and the world around them.

Goodman writes: "How do you describe the times we live in, so connected and yet fractured? Linda Stone, a former Microsoft techie, characterizes ours as an era of 'continuous partial attention.' ... [we] live with all systems go, interrupted and distracted, scanning everything, multi-technological-tasking everywhere. We suffer from the illusion, says Stone, that we can expand our personal bandwidth, connecting to more and more. Instead, we end up overstimulated, overwhelmed and, she adds, unfulfilled. Continuous partial attention inevitably feels like a lack of full attention."

A few months back, I penned an entry about the pervasiveness of the CrackBerry and the inability of its users to put the things down (full disclosure: I have one) after another columnist so eloquently articulated my own feelings: "The essence of being in the moment," Christie Blatchford wrote, "means being caught up in the presentness of the present such that you are deaf and blind to everyone and everything else, including the nagging voice of past experience and the ringing alarm bell of future consequence."

Posted by Sebastian / August 15, 2005 /

The Curse of the Blackberry

In a recent editorial, Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail penned a fantastic piece about one of the most vile pieces of technology to infiltrate modern times: the CrackBerry (nee BlackBerry). Although I own the snazzy 7230 model that is a trusty sidekick -- especially as I make my way through airports or slog through Boston's notorious traffic tie-ups -- I generally have a low tolerance for people and their (mis)usage of the phone/email combo device.

On a recent trip to the West Coast, a friend insisted on pulling his out at midnight, just as one of Vancouver's most riotous drag shows was getting underway. The queens may have been tired, but the show was simply not so bad as to deserve such an e-insult. Another time, in Boston, I was on a dinner date from hell when my paramour just had to email between sips of cabernet sauvignon, and then again between dinner and dessert. I thought he was attractive, and that overall the date went well, but I quickly extricated the addict from my little black book.

The problem with the BlackBerry is that it has largely succeeded in ruining the moment -- and I'm not just taking about dinner dates. As Ms. Blatchford points out so eloquently, "Indeed, fewer and fewer of us appear capable of doing what used to be called being in the moment. People now want to be in several moments simultaneously, with, I would argue, the result that they are properly in none."

Especially when one is on vacation, or enjoying a fine restaurant, why do people seem so unable to cut themselves off for an hour or two? I was blessed on my recent trip to B.C. My BlackBerry, due to a bizarre "network issue" was unable to send messages. It was rendered useless and the $300 piece of plastic stayed in the hotel, making for a near-perfect weekend.

"The essence of being in the moment," Blatchford wrote, "means being caught up in the presentness of the present such that you are deaf and blind to everyone and everything else, including the nagging voice of past experience and the ringing alarm bell of future consequence. It is what makes for the best spontaneous gatherings, the most exciting love and the most remarkable memories -- those times when you give yourself over fully to the very taste of another mouth, the look of the slice of sky over your head, the feel of a summer's wind on your face, or even the chemistry of a particular party."

When is the last time we were caught up in such a moment, without the interference of phones and the ubiquitous BlackBerry? I can recount a few precious times and they are just that -- etched into my memory as timeless instances when all parties involved were fully in the moment, freed from their phones, palms, and various and sundry email devices.

Perhaps it is a reflection of our time that more and more of us have an obsessive inability to remain disconnected for even the slightest span of time. That's why I love being on airplanes -- no phones running, no incessant tapping away on the BlackBerry. (This, of course, will change as our mobile devices will surely be allowed in-flight within the next year or so.)

A shrewd blogger takes a fine perspective on the BlackBerry epidemic: "When terse electronic signals take the place of real conversations with real people, that's not a good thing."

PS: I would post the Blatchford piece in its entirety, but as one well-known Globe and Mail columnist told me (not Ms. Blatchford!), "the paper has turned stingy" and now most online content is fee-based. I have a subscription to the paper, but I'm not sharing.

Related
• A BlackBerry Throbs, and a Wonk has a Date (New York Times)
• A Culture War: BlackBerry or CrackBerry? (NPR)
• Definition: CrackBerry (WordSpy)
• Take a Vacation From Your BlackBerry (BusinessWeek)

Posted by Sebastian / March 4, 2005