iPhone withdrawal: one addict’s account

Self-confessed iPhone addict, and colleague, Stephen Lawson, has a well-written and well-thought-out account of his life today, without the iPhone. What he eventually zeroes in on is the true nature of his addiction: it’s not the device itself, or even its App Store applications, but the mobile Web. “I’m not talking about the useful parts, such as the application that told me when the next bus was coming, though not having that reshapes my day a bit sometimes. What keeps me reaching for my iPhone like a phantom limb is just the diversion of something new to look at during the innumerable downtimes of my day. I’d incessantly read blogs, check my e-mail, look at my Facebook page, and read something we used to call “newspapers.” Any and all were perfect for waiting for the bus, riding public transportation, or just waiting for another computer — the one on my desk — to get started.” He sought counsel, from Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a “technology analyst who’s been opining on the latest gadgets for years.” “I personally have always been very cautious about new technology adoption,” Kay said. “I think of off-grid as being important….There’s something about being huddled over this little device that bothers me.” It bothers other people, too. Last year, my wife organized a vacation Bible School with others at a small, inner-city church. They decided to ban iPods (along with cell phones and the like) because they observed that even when the teens were in groups, when they were plugged in, they became alone, they stopped interacting with each other. And yes: you can make the point that being plugged into the Internet is by definition interacting with others. But “meaningful” interactions seem to be sharply circumscribed and limited: online relationships are in concentric circles, with a just a few close ones, with others grouped in order of emotional distance. Lawson writes about an image of the new huddled masses: “On the beautifully restored antique streetcars of San Francisco, there are row after row of passengers with their heads down and their faces bathed in the glow of the iPhone — or the BlackBerry, or Samsung Instinct, or for the really technologically hip, the T-Mobile G1.” So Lawson for now at least is using a cheap antique cell phone and doing real reading — of books. As Kay told him, “You can have a new love after the iPhone.”