Mobile Internet Addiction: A Personal Account Pt. 3

Addicted to the gadget

Once my cellular plan includes sms, (or text messaging,) I was hooked to my mobile device! I found myself communicating more and more via text than by actual phone calls. My first cell plan had 1500 minutes talk time and only about 500 sms and mms combined. After about 6 months I realized that was going to be inadequate, so I switched my plan to a 500 minute plan with unlimited messaging. Mind you, this was back in the day of a la carte mobile plans, long before data plans as we know them. Once the plans were in place I never exceeded my monthly call minutes...to this day I never go over 100 minutes a month. But text messaging? Once I got the unlimited plan I was hitting upwards of about 3000 texts a month! And it wasn't slowing down at all!


The first device I had? A nondescript Samsung clamshell phone.

Back when T9 text entry ruled the day!!!

As my texting abilities improved, so did my hunger for new and improved gadgets. My phone then got smaller bit texting volume increased considerably with a better and bigger screen.

Slim, small, but very capable of handling all my texting needs...plus basic web surfing!

Right around 2007 the Blackberry craze started hitting my office full force...You either had a Blackberry our you weren't cool...at least that's how it felt. I was never really cool, so Blackberries were not in my future; improved keyboards, however, were. Oh man how that helped my texting!

The Samsung Blast...the phone that allowed me to break the 1K text barrier!

All these phones were fine and dandy and I felt on top of the world...then the iPhone came.  People couldn't say enough good things about the phone and all of its awesomeness.  I, however...

I was not impressed.

Not only do Apple products don't impress me, I feel they are horribly overpriced and pretentious.  Plus, I was a loyal T-Mobile subscriber, so plunking down $500+ plus breaking my contract was not very appealing at all.

Then there were whispers on the technology blog-o-sphere about a revolutionary operating system that was to blow the doors off of anything Apple could ever do...and little did I know it would change my entire life.

To be continued next week...