The title’s a little misleading. I am not going to be trying to emulate Keats here. Much as I’d like to…I love my iPhone.
The title’s a little misleading. I am not going to be trying to emulate Keats here. Much as I’d like to…I love my iPhone. It’s less than a year since I acquired it and already I’m convincing myself I can’t do without it. But here’s the question – what did I do without it?
Well first off, I was slower to respond to notifications, both Twitter and Facebook. I am now a slave to both forms of social media, all the time. It’s actually very good for my chosen career as I’m training to be a journalist, and social media is pretty much the best way to get to know people who might be able to give you a hand (or a story). But it does infuriate me a little that I’m so obsessed with my notifications.
In a similar vein, I didn’t check my emails nearly as often pre-iPhone. It used to be once a day, if that! Now it’s a few times a day, with very few new results. To be honest, I’m considering signing up to more sites with newsletters just to fuel my obsessive email-checking addiction…
Before I got an iPhone, I ventured into the unknown a lot more readily. If I thought I’d be able to find the place without help, I wouldn’t bother printing a Google Map. If it then proved difficult, I used my intuition. Now, I check Google Maps constantly whenever I’m travelling to somewhere new, just to be sure, even if I know the route. Because I can.
I also used to wait for buses pretty passively. I would check the timetable if there was one, and look at the route map at the bus stop itself to check I was about to get on the right one. Now, I rely on the ‘Brighton+Hove Bus’ app to get me around. It’s fantastic, with a comprehensive list of services, route maps, and updated schedules. But that doesn’t mean I should be relying on it so heavily and ignoring the signs of an approaching bus that are right in front of me…like an approaching bus itself.
Looking at this post so far, I have both become more proactive since acquiring an iPhone (checking my social media and emails more), and more lazy (relying on Google maps and bus apps).
I am pleased to say at this point I remain able to take my contraceptive pill by myself, and never plan to venture into the world of ‘The Pill App’, for fear of becoming reliant on it, with pretty horrendous consequences if it suddenly went down for a week…
I could go back to the old days. I think. My mobile phone has always been an extension of my hand, and I’ve always been a text addict (I don’t call people. If I call you, you’re very privileged, and right up there in my top five.). I could go back to my old ‘no internet’ phone and my iPod touch, only being able to access the internet with WiFi.
I like to think this. It gives me security if there’s ever some sort of smart-phone apocalypse.
And I like to think that if the internet itself suddenly implodes, I’ll enjoy the somewhat retro task of heading to public libraries for information and stimulation. As a history graduate, I spent a lot of my final year chilling out in historical archive centres around the country, and enjoyed the calming atmosphere.
I’m going to finish this post with a rather nice Keats quote- to make some sort of link to my rather original but so far completely inaccurate title.
‘’Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
And I think my iPhone is beautiful.
