Off-Base: The iPhone Has Taken Over My Brain

I spent the better part of Sunday night recording and editing the latest podcast for your enjoyment.  As I started to pass out around one o'clock in the morning, I skipped my usual nightly ritual of putting all of my carry-along crap in it's usual resting place (my wallet, my keys, my watch, my phone), turned off my laptop and fell asleep. About five hours later, the sound of my youngest crying through the white noise of his baby monitor startled me out of bed.  The morning routine commenced: dress myself, dress the kids, make breakfast, grab my carry-along crap, yada yada yada.  Before leaving the house, I quickly checked my phone for messages when my day suddenly became a bit grayer: i hadn't charged my phone and was left with about twenty percent of battery.  Normally, this wouldn't have been too big a deal but I left my car charger in my wife's car. It wasn't that long ago that people didn't have cellphones on them every hour of the day, nevermind access to the internet, email, maps, weather, game updates, Facebook, Bejeweled, traffic cams, RSS readers, iChat.  I didn't think I was so far removed from those times that not having my phone available to me for an afternoon would be that big a deal. Wrong.  I spent the better part of the day with twitchy fingers, reaching to my side like a gunslinger every time I was faced with a few mundane moments, eager to check my email, read a few Facebook statuses or catch up on some news.  I wasn't even concerned about shutting my phone off and not receiving calls to save my battery in case of an emergency.  I didn't want to talk to people.  I just wanted to read about them. I'm an iPhone addict, which is a hard thing to admit.  I generally like Apple's products, but I am not an Apple enthusiast like some of the weirdos you see at the store, treating every Apple product like they've just invented fire.  The company does a lot of things that bother me, like taking other people's ideas, repackaging them and marketing them like they are somehow new.  I also enjoy how they restrict access to some software developers on their platform, causing lots of compatibility issues with their ever-evolving operating system. But with the iPhone, they basically got it right.  They've created a near perfect daily companion for me.  Sure, I wish it would record video (although the next generation might do it), and I wish the internet were a bit faster on 3G (ditto the next generation), but this stupid little device serves as a gateway to almost everything I need want to do on the internet throughout the day.  There are times when I'm sitting at a computer like I am right now and my iPhone is on beside me, checking email and whatnot.  It's my little friend. I'm a little scared of this development in my life.  I've always been around computers and used them in some capacity.  When I was a kid, it was for creating music and playing games.  In college, it was for doing papers and... playing games.  Post college, it was work and playing games. Now I have a computer in my pocket and the second my mind is not engaged, my attention goes right to my phone.  It's creepy almost, as if I've conditioned myself to seek out some mental stimulus that is neither informative nor overly stimulating.  And then, when something in real life happens before me, it will have to wait a moment as I finish whatever trivial task I have started on my phone. Cellphones became such a problem with drivers that most states passed a law stating that you needed a hands-free device to talk on the phone in the car.  Naturally, the original car phones, the kind that was installed in your car and never came out, were built around the speakerphone system, because that only made sense.  Once portability became a factor, people stopped thinking and kept on talking. I'm waiting for them to adjust the law to include texting while driving.  I'll admit, I've done it a few times myself.  Usually when I drive, my iPhone is riding shotgun, waiting for a redlight so I can pick it up and flip through a few emails.  Usually, when the light turns green, I put it back down.  Sometimes, despite the lack of importance, I am compelled to try and type an email or text with one thumb, my eyes darting back and forth between the road and the little onscreen keyboard that, after two years, I still find impossible to type on with two thumbs. I am not proud of my texting while driving.  In fact, it's completely irresponsible.  I rank it up there with people who put on makeup while driving or have their little dogs bounding around the car and their laps while zipping through town. That's what these phones do to you.  They strip you of all reason and make your brain hungry for more information.  It doesn't have to be important or even useful.  You are only compelled by the notion that, within that phone, there may be something for you to read to get you through the forty seconds of red light you now have to sit through. This is what my iPhone has done to me.  It's a sad state of affairs and, I admit, I am not too thrilled with my compulsions.  But I love this thing and I am never, ever giving it up.