Meet My Friend, Gadget

My friends and I go everywhere together. If not all of them, at least one them are with me every where I go. That includes work, DJ events, hanging with my family. Hell, I've even taken them along on dates! I know. It sounds crazy. But i'm so emotionally attached to them, that it's just difficult for me to be away from my friends during any part of the day. I'm sick, I know, but i've grown so emotionally attached to all my friends and I just keep finding new friends to hang out with.

Oh, you think that i'm a sociopath. Put the phone down, don't call for intervention. I'm fine. I'm just like many of you. But I admit that I'm a product of an era. You think that I crave attention and need to be around people all the time. That's not it at all.

My friends are gadgets! Yes, electronic gadgets. Gadgets that connect me to the world. A world much smaller than it was 20 years ago.

For me, it began in 1992. The home computer boom. Everyone had to have one. America Online. They ruled the Earth. People were buying computers just to have AOL. Bing bing bing wheeeeeee dong dong dong. "Welcome, You've got mail". That was like an adrenaline rush. Your heart beat really fast and you couldn't wait to see what you got in the mail! You didn't care if it was a coupon from Wal-Mart. It was mail. Now that I look back on it, it was strange that although you were online, when you signed on to AOL, you were in a contained box. Rarely did you venture outside of AOL. What is that www stuff? I'll pass. Everywhere you looked; tv, radio, magazines, banners, all had these www signs and people were afraid to check it out. "No, i'll just stick with my AOL". No need to venture outside of that world. You had your mail, your chat rooms, your friends; those you knew and those weirdos that you met in some erroneous chat room.

Once we finally got over our fear for leaving AOL, we discovered that the www world wasn't so bad. So we went crazy. www.this and www.that. And now, we rushed home from work and play to www everything possible. It was crazy. People suddenly stopped leaving their homes and the streets were empty after 6pm. The apartment complex parking lot was full because everybody was home, www'ing. We found games, we found relationships, we had sex, we had email address just because we could. "Who's gonna stop me?". So the internet took over our lives and now, I can't imagine life without it. Nor can you if you're reading this blog. Because the internet is the only place that you're gonna read it. *insert smiley face or a wink face*

Then came the cell phone. Yes. The cell phone had been around since the 80's, but only the elitist had them. They were a luxury. People who had them were rich executives, celebrities, successful lawyers and salespeople and maybe some street entrepreneurs. The common man did not have a cell phone. But in the 90's, that all changed. I purchased my first cellphone, yellow candy bar Nokia with the white buttons on the front. My Plan was $35 for 100 minutes per month. Sprint ironically. Then several years later, just like the www ads, I began to notice this word, "text". As in "text 5576" and "text a-d-a-m". I wondered what it was, but dared to do it. I had no idea what this would do. I'm not trying it. Then strangely, my phone went, "bling!!". I said, "what the hell is that?" I looked and saw a strange envelopey shapey thingy. I slowly reached for the "OK" button to accept it. It was a message, "yo, whuddup" and it had a phone number above it. I was nervous. I pulled the car over and contemplated my next option. Do I reply? Do I just look at it? What now? I did not even fathom or care who it might be! My mind was resting on, what do I do next!. So the decision was made. Reply. "Who dis?". That one reply opened a whole new world! Texting. Of course at the end of month, I received my bill that stated I owed $250 for text messaging. Learned my lesson, bought a text package. No way was I living without THIS!

Now I have the www and a phone and I can text. But I could only text those people who accepted my text, so my texting was limited. But dammit, my world was getting so accessible. I was loving life.

Then...

Blackberry. Oh no. I thought the laptop was bad. (Also called "notebooks or notepads" by geeks and college students), But, Blackberry was a whole new level. It made laptops look primitive.

I was introduced to Blackberry. Big brick of a phone with a ginormous screen and a jog wheel on the side. There was no way that you mistake this beast sitting in your pocket or on your hip. You knew for sure when you had it with you. It weighed what seemed like a pound. But you could surf the web, get your email, and text. My lord... I don't have to sit at home now? I have my world on my hip?! Are you effin kidding me? Hell. I could do nothing else. Blackberry, blackberry, blackberry... drive-blackberry, walk-blackberry, shop-blackberry, lunch with real people-blackberry, dinner with my girl-blackberry, picnics, sports outing, vacation, road trips-blackberry. It had become an extension of my hand. Like a fingernail. But much more important. I would bite my fingernails and spit them out like they had no redeeming quality. This Blackberry thing was like a limb!

So Blackberry spawned windows mobile phones and of course iPhones and Androids. And of course we wanted larger screens without having to tote around laptops, so hence, the iPad, Android tablets and so on. What do we need people for again? Oh, to talk to on all of these devices! That's it!

So these devices are my friends. I'm emotionally attached to them. Very rarely am I seen without at least two of them at a time. The emotional connection is very real. When you don't have them, what sets in is the feeling of loneliness, loss, out of control, disconnected. "Where's my phone?", "I need to post that", "...that was witty, i'll make that my status", "what an idea, i need to blog about that", are all common thoughts throughout the day. Since we no longer remember phone numbers & addresses and email addresses and carrying a phone book is just out of the question and not to mention that we need to save people's phone numbers who we don't even know or talk to; our phones keep all of this pertinent and not-so-pertinent info on it. When we misplace or lose our phone, we just lost our world; friends, almost friends, family, and even mom. "Now I have to call my sister and ask her what mom's phone number is.. ugh". Often, I see Facebook status messages that say, "Send me your contact info. I lost my phone". I always wonder what they do about the people that aren't on Facebook. "Oh, those people. I'll get there info...eventually".

By the way. There are several ways to store contact info so that when you lose your phone, you can retrieve it. That was invented a few years ago.

I heard a story that I must credit to former colleague of mine. I'll call her Bobbi for this story. She witnessed a car flipped over on the side of the road. Two female teens were sitting by the wreckage. Bobbi went over to assist them. They were crying and visibly upset and shaken. Blood was on there faces. Visible bruises from the airbags and scars from broken glass. Other than that, they seemed fine. Bobbi went to the girls and walked them away from the wreckage so that she could speak with them. She understood both the physical and emotional psychosis of car accidents and she treated them with kid gloves. "Are you girls ok?", Bobbi said. The girl was trembling, gasping for air as she said her first words, "m-m-my PHONE!!!. It's it's ...... st-st-st-still in the c-c-car! I need to GET MY PHONE!!!!". True story. After a traumatic car accident, bleeding and bruised, this girl was concerned about her phone! That's what we've become. And I get it.

Today my fiancé teases me about my addiction to my Android device, my iPad, my laptop, the desktop, and the fact that i'm always attached to one. In fact, she found it funny that I have 4 laptops! I just gave her one to make up for my insanity. She stopped teasing me instantly. *insert smiley face and a wink face*. She hasn't taken her eye off it in days. Even though, she's sitting right next to the desktop. I also gave her an Android device. And I share my iPad with her. But not very often.

Yes. My closest friends are gadgets. But it keeps me close to my human friends and family. They've made me smarter. More intellectual. I keep in touch with people more often. I make more friends and acquaintances in a week than I used to make in a year. I even talk to my pastor on days other than Sunday! So this is working out. There are others out there like me.

This makes me happy.