The Blackberry: Destroyer of Worlds -- And the New York Senate

I finally understood this week that my wife was right--that the Blackberry is the tool of Satan. It is Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. The way I came to understand this was itself a sign of the sickness that this instrument brings.

Please ponder the case of one Malcolm Smith, who until a few days ago was the majority leader of the New York State Senate. Smith received a visit from a New York billionaire named Tom Golisano, who has spent a good chunk of his fortune in recent years running quixotic campaigns for governor, bankrolling some of Bill Clinton's activities and otherwise trying to let the world know that a man named Tom Golisano once strode the earth. He had bankrolled Smith and other Democrats to help them take control of the state senate in January for the first time in 43 years.

It was natural, then, for Golisano to expect that he would have Smith's full attention when he went to see him in Albany. But Golisano had the same experience that millions of other people have millions of time a day. Instead of having a real conversation with Smith, he had the equivalent of a conversation with one tenth of Smith's brain. The other nine tenths were going over his email, as if a jokey message from a friend, or a press release from some marginally relevant organization, or an RSS feed from a stupid website were more important than his political patron.

"I said, I'm talking to the wall here," Golisano told the New York Times. The wall did not apologize or answer appropriately and so Golisano decided to put his efforts behind two turncoat Democrats ready to switch parties and return the Republicans to power. One of the senators, Hiram Monseratte, had been indicted for stabbing his wife with broken glass. The other, Pedro Espada, had been fined for flagrant campaign spending abuses. But because neither of those offenses compared to Smith's Crackberry jones, the GOP is back in power in Albany.

I can't get inside Smith's head to know why he threw it all away for some cheap emails. All I know is that his head, if it's like mine, is awfully crowded with awfully fractionalized relationships with people, or more properly, with the digitized, disembodied version of people that exists online.

Blackberry use has nearly doubled in the last year and is up ten fold in four years. More than 25 million have been sold, which means there must be something deeply human about their appeal. Some have compared the phenomenon to a "Skinner's box," a reference to the psychologist B.F. Skinner's experiments with how certain stimuli work on the brain.

My wife has a simpler analogy for people who diddle all day. Masturbation. But without the release. It's not like there's a fabulous climactic email that makes thumbing the monkey all worthwhile.

How do you know you have a problem? Judith Martin, aka "Miss Manners," told me a couple of years ago that it's rude to use a Blackberry in the presence of other people. Period. Using it in front of your children, as I do on occasion, is, in her book, just one step up from criminal neglect.

But instead of reforming my behavior to stop being impolite or to be more present for my wife and kids, I was only brought up short when I realized through the sad case of Senator Smith that the Blackberry could be the agent of career harm. The final rationalization--that it saves time and helps me do my job better--now lay in tatters, too. Instead of winning friends online, I may be losing them in person, in that moment when they see me with my head down, concentrating on someone else.

I wish I could tell you that I'm now ready to give up my Blackberry. That would give this tale an uplifting end. But I can't and I won't. I'm hooked. I'm like a drug abuser who looks at some junkie in an alley, a needle in his vein, and says, 'That's not me.' Except it is.

Written on a blackberry wireless handheld device.

Comments

[rf dude]

Shiva H. Vishnu...
--

[chicagopolitics]

This guy really did not put his blackberry away in a meeting? Really? I mean if you wouldnt do it in a job interview.­..

[OhComeOnNow]

I heard about one guy who DID read his blackberry during an interview and actually told the interviewer to "hold on a sec".

[zull2]

I entirely DISagree. The Blackberry is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

Don't blame the technology for exposing the stupidity of the people using it. Praise it for exposing the stupidity of the people using it. Either those people learn a valuable lesson while everyone else learns a valuable lesson about them, or another hapless idiot, regardless of party, is cast down from leading us. Do you really want stupid people leading you? Making all the calls that directly affect your life and livelihood?

And for those who hate it because it "makes people stop talking to other people", I have to question those people's intelligence as well. First off, the thing is designed to make it easier to communicate with others. Secondly, it's the choice of the person using the device to choose not to put the device down and go talk to someone. Again, don't blame the tool for the person using it.

[Zen0469]

Thanks Jonathan. You made my day. May good things keep streaming your way.

[littlepuffycloud]

All the technology that supposedly 'keeps us in contact with others' is killing socialization and the art of conversation. It started with email in the office and has now trickled down to kids who would rather text than actually speak with another person. When all the time-saving devices marketed as time-savers for housewifes a century ago, she ended up spending more time on housework after she got an electric washing machine and vacuum sweeper. Just like the 'paperless office' that was going to save millions with the advent of computers in the work force 15 years ago. That didn't turn out to be true either. The Blackberry is but one more thing to which we will become slaves.

[AngelaFlynn]

The pdf link in my previous post had two inadvertent spaces and will not work unless they are removed.

Here it is again without the spaces -

http://www.emfacts.com/papers/cell_addict_en.pdf

[AngelaFlynn]

I love the connection that email provides. It is wonderful to be able to send and receive messages without having to interrupt other people. But there is more going on here than a simple need to connect. The radiofrequency radiation emitted by wireless devices alters our brainwaves and this may be addictive. Here is a recent paper on this -

"Addiction to cell phones: are there neurophysiological mechanisms involved?" the paper by Afonso Balmori and Maria Paz de la Puente looks at cell phone use as an addiction problem, especially for children and young people.

The English translation is at: http://www.emfacts.com/papers/ cell_addict_ en.pdf

Abstract: At first glance we could consider the addiction to cell phones as belonging to those addictions that are substance-free, also called psychological addictions. Yet, unlike these, cell phones emit microwaves that reach the brain, making investigators wonder if there could be a physiological base for such addictions. The following article gives a brief overview of the studies made that analyze the effects that these radiation produce and that bring us closer to the possible addictive effect, similar to those provoked by conventional drugs.

For more on bio-effects go to www.bioinitiative.org

[elsieach]

LOL. I just got a Blackberry from work. There's some problem with the service and I can't get the internet to work on it. I don't care, but I tell my boss whenever he asks that I'm working on it.

I have 3 twenty something kids, and my favorite thing about getting the Blackberry was finally being able to go to dinner with them one night and refusing to talk to them, but sending texts across the table to them instead. Turnabout is fair play.

[PocketWatch]

Actually not as new a phenomenon as might be believed. This is the equivalent of a salesperson at your favorite store on the phone dealing with customers' questions, etc. while you are waiting to buy something with money in your hand. Which is more important? I've walked away from many purchases over the years when confronted with this situation. Seems very similar to me... ignoring that which is in person and in front of you for some disembodied voice (or in this case, pixels on a screen).

[quad1200]

I began to seek help when my fiancee said he would dump me due to my "problem"

[LoraineAntrim]

Ah, the old "dissed by the berry" dilemma! Ultimately, it boils down to prioritizing. Using a blackberry or any texting device is not sleeping with the devil. It's matter of time and place. In and of itself, technology is not good or bad, it's how you use it and bring it into your life. Misplaced priorities for Malcolm Smith: he chose to make a machine a priority over a person. Stupid mistake from a political standpoint, and just plain rude, ignorant behavior. Blackberry: 1, Humans: 0. Loraine Antrim

[newleaf]

some the references to wife stabbing and flagrant financial abuses make me believe all the more that any abuse like that should result in immediate job loss for these supposed representatives of ours. If you look at the stats on our elected representatives, it'd make you think you were looking at a summary sheet of offenses in the penal system.

[VirginiaJeff]

I sent this story to my college-age son as a reminder about the importance of courtesy, even when surrounded by temptations to distraction.

[rf dude]

How many of us, right at this moment, are busy commenting here on Huffpost

when we would likely be better off spending our time

with real people around us - the Family, the dog, or even the goldfish.

THIS is truly ALL maya...
--

[apoyo]

The moral of the story is not the blackberry but the power of one man's money.

[bulfinch]

His money, his insecurity, and his ego.