Thank You Cell Phones

An hour before quitting time Wednesday my phone decided to take a dump... it locked up while drafting a text to Sheri. I used the 'take the battery out, put the battery back in, press power' trick that had worked on previous such occasions, but this time when the phone powered on it reached the Windows Mobile screen and started vibrating uncontrollably - which led to a subsequent battery removal. 4 attempts later I realized that my phone could not be resucitated.

Brandon's Samsung Blackjack: pronouced dead at 4:04pm local Doha time, May 20th, 2009

So I finished up at work, passed the bad news to Sheri via gmail chat, and headed out to run a few quick errands. As I drove down one of the busier streets in Doha I suddenly felt very naked without a working mobile phone, realizing that if I broke down or got into an accident I wouldn't be able to easily call for help like I did after getting rearended a few months ago... quite an uncomfortable feeling. Then I got stuck in terrible traffic halfway across town without anyway to call home and let Sheri know I'd be running late... making a stressful situation even more frustrating.

I later stopped by Carrefour on the way home to pick up a new phone (fortunately here the phones are all unlocked and ready to throw a SIM card in). I rushed home to charge my new Nokia and immediately felt at peace again.

In that moment of 'chaos' I realized that world of instant communication, adorned with Blackberry's and iPhones, provides us the opportunity to stay connected 24 hours a day. It has revolutionized how we interact with one another on a real time basis. How far we've come from the days of letters and physical phone lines, how did folks manage to survive:
1. No caller ID to know whether to pick up the phone or not, but on the flip side you didn't have voicemail tag battles
2. No text messaging so you actually had to call someone in person
3. Couldn't just call your wife or kids in the supermarket or mall to locate them before going to the security desk for a PA annoucement
4. Couldn't call from a traffic jam to tell your family/friends you're running behind, or phone the restaurant to extend your reservation 15 mins from the cab
5. Couldn't call the police or a tow truck from the side of the road after an accident or breakdown, you had to hitchhike to a phone booth or local farm house instead
6. International or State to State calls used to require a second mortgage, and had three minutes of echo'd reverb

So many aspects of our lives are 'easier' because of the mobile phone. The problem is that once you start participating in the connectivity revolution, be it with your spouse, kids, friends, or boss, you take on the responsibilities associated there with - you are left with few excuses for not informing others (late for dinner, cancelling the poker game, stopping at Krispy Kreme on the way home, etc).

It wasn't until my phone went KiA that I realized just how far technology has impacted how we live our lives. And judging from the capabilities of today's top phones it looks like we're only going to get more dependent on them in the future.

Update: 5 mins after making this post we were watching CNN international and saw the following piece: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/05/22/finighan.uk.smart.phones.cnn