Sometimes when you read this blog, you might see it end with the immortal words: "sent from my blackberry handheld". Well, this is because I live on a Blackberry mobile smart phone, to run my daily office - and life. It really is an amazing machine. As well as enabling email & internet, it takes pictures, allows sat nav, has an electronic diary and can also play MP3 downloads and the like. Now you can sync it with google, so that every time you update emails, contacts and calendar, it automatically updates your google account, wherever you happen to be.
Now I know, I may sound like the latest Carphone Warehouse advert, but I can't help but be astounded by the genius that mobile technology provides.
I never take for granted the machine's capabilities and see mobile technology as one of the great wonders of our time. It is definitely a technology that empowers, and it is noticeable that the developing world countries are going straight to mobile technology and leapfrogging landline systems. When I was teaching in Rwanda, most of the students had mobiles and you could buy a decent Nokia imitation offline, as ch
eap as £10 - although this is a huge sum for Rwandans.Of course all this mobile business has its downsides. Blackberries can become electronic tags in which everybody can contact you and you spend almost every minute replying to emails. They also become instruments of discourtesy, as people look/text/email when they are in the middle of face to face conversation etc.
But these are easily outweighed by the benefits. Waiting for a doctors appointment, you can read an ebook downloaded on the machine, or glance at a newspaper via the mobile internet. Going on holiday, you can take all your favourite music without having to have a Walkman or pack loads of CDs.
Whether it is Blackberries or iPhones, these kind of smart phones are changing our lives and enabling us to contact each other and interact with the Internet, in ways we never ever imagined. I am convinced they will gradually replace the personal computer, even if we do link them up to a bigger monitor and keyboard when needed. It will be fascinating to see what the next generation of mobile technology will bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment