My husband got his first iPhone last week
after a few years believing his BlackBerry was his most prized possession,
until the last month or two when it started giving hassles and he believed it
would look better in a thousand pieces on the floor.
I’m due for an upgrade next month and I
also plan on replacing my tiny Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini with an iPhone. I’m
excited but also extremely nervous.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but my husband
said something a few days ago that has stuck with me ever since. He said having
an iPhone is not like having any old phone; it’s a whole new identity.
I can vouch for his claims, because ever since
he acquired the device, I’ve become chopped liver and get more attention from
the television set. I’m trying not to complain too much about it because I
imagine I’ll be the same when it’s my turn. We’re all like that with a new
phone, right? It’s a new toy; something we’ll fiddle with for hours on end
during the first few weeks.
In just two days, my husband has been swallowed
up by Instagram, Draw Something, iChat and a motocross game he finds incredibly
fascinating because he can control the bike simply by tilting his phone. In his
place is a person with a vague resemblance to my husband, only with squint eyes
and warped thumbs.
And still, the “whole new identity” bit is
haunting. Social networking only really took off when we were in our early
twenties. We use some platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, but not others,
like Mxit – we missed that age train by a few years. It’s strange – even though
my brother is only eight years younger than I am, I still feel as though he was
born into a whole new generation. Social networking is all he’s ever known.
And even though a journalist friend of mine
recently attended an event that revealed that youngsters think people with
iPhones are old, the iPhone is still an incredibly connected device that
facilitates social networking like no other in a way I have never experienced
before – and I’m scared. I don’t want to be like one of those teenagers with
their thumbs permanently glued to their phones and their eyes averted from the
path in front of them. I want to be here when I’m here; not here, but not here
because I’m somewhere else via the iPhone.
For now, I’ll enjoy only using my phone to
send text messages, make calls and browse the Internet occasionally. Who knows
what I’ll be doing this time next month.
I hope you’ll still recognise me with
squint eyes and warped thumbs.
