The Blackberry hitch

The recent Blackberry outages that swept across the world caused a blinding rage among users. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much anger at anything before, at least if my social networking page is any guide. It was real woe-is-me-end-of-the-world talk that was overblown enough to be comical. I kept my amusement to myself obviously- Blackberry users suffered a significant sense of humour failure during those trying days, and I assume it is too soon to play the court jester. But truth be told, I was fairly blasé about the whole thing. Let’s face it, part of the reason Blackberry users were so mad about this was precisely because the service had been working terrifically well previously. It was the very efficiency of the product that made the blackout so unlikely and subsequently caused all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Of course, its importance in people’s social and commercial lives was an important factor in the anger, but there was still a disproportionate response to the incident. It’s funny how we forget that technology is not perfection and that things can go wrong, if only temporarily. Every time a gadget lets us down, we overreact and do a lot of cursing. However, surely occasional hitches are the price you pay for having access to this dazzling world of high-tech wizadry? Not that I was happy about it obviously. As a Blackberry user, it was an inconvenience not receiving emails or having internet coverage, but as I’m a glass half-full kind of guy, and the whole incident just made me appreciate Blackberry services and related technologies a whole lot more. And ultimately such technology works, and it works very well indeed. If anything, incidents like these remind me that I’m in awe at how such things work smoothly for years with barely a glitch worth mentioning till something like this comes around. The fact that things work most of the time may seem like a banal observation, but it is still something to remember in these times of impatience where the net being down for five minutes nearly causes street riots. Let’s face it- we’ve become pretty spoiled. However, it is not all gleeful admiration and wonder on my part. My awe in this regard is tied up with my relative ignorance about the sheer number of new and supposedly exciting gadgets which gives way to apathy. I couldn’t keep up with all the 2.0 and 3.0’s if I had a graph and a manual for dummies- it is just way too much to keep up with. How am I supposed to get excited about the new iphone when there’s a new one seemingly every three months? And what does the tablet mean to me aside from bringing to mind pharmaceutical products and ancient prophets? Why is the new mp3 player so much more expensive and yet it is pretty much exactly like the old one? Apparently, each gadget makes our lives easier, but how does something so supposedly amazing become virtually obsolete in a few months? It is like a cool club that I cannot really join. I admire the relentless march of progress, the sleek designs and the clever marketing, but admiring from afar is just about all I will do. Minega_isibo@yahoo.co.uk

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The Blackberry hitch