On my ride home last night things were similar to how they always are... People more or less minding their own business. The guy sitting next to me chatting on the phone in a language I couldn't identify, the guy on the other side reading a book in Chinese. Across the way another man watched sitcoms on his iphone, a girl filled out the crossword while balancing impressively in the center of the car.
Directly across from me a man fiddled with his blackberry when it suddenly broke and spewed (10 bonus points for using spewed in a blog post) tiny pieces all over the floor of the car. He sat and stared at it for a second and then busted out laughing. This struck me as a very appropriate response. I helped him scramble around on the floor to find each widget while everyone else continued to mind their own business around us.
In the end, we ended up having a pretty interesting conversation about how cell phones are taking over the world. When I commented on his positive reaction to the self-destruction of his own device he simply smiled and said "Ironic that I'm having a better, more real conversation now that I broke it. Perhaps it was a sign to show me that I'm more disconnected with the world when I'm connected to my technology like that."
As a gadget person I find all this innovation wonderful and interesting and happy. I love that I can write here in cyberspace and potentially express myself to thousands of people through a medium that my grandparents couldn't even have imagined. Yet from time to time its nice to have that broken cell phone moment. A camping trip without reception, a month in Africa, moments where we can reconnect with ourselves and our immediate world. The cyber world should be a supplement, not a substitute.
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