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BlackBerry Autism: A worldwide phenomenon

By
Stanley Bing
Stanley Bing
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By
Stanley Bing
Stanley Bing
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September 17, 2007, 10:21 AM ET


blackberry7290.jpg
A happy Monday to you. It’s a stop and smell the neurosis morning. The sky here in New York is a deep and trusty blue, the air has the tang of autumn soccer in it, and the first leaves in the park are starting to turn. It’s days like these you want to open your window, lean out and inhale what is probably the best air we’re likely to get for a while. Too bad they don’t open — our windows. The best we can do in this particular corporate tower is peer out at all the little people in the street enjoying the weather. My, they look happy.

Quite a few of you wrote in to either spank or thank me about my little tale of BlackBerry autism I offered last week. My favorite came from Michael in London, who writes:

Hi Stanley, had similar experience on flight from Dubai to London except in my case I was treated to all the emotions that your bloke didn’t seem to share. Before we had even received complimentary drinks, we heard the roars of good news I assume, followed by hmmmm, wonder what was next, it came just as we left the tarmac, it was “oh b**ger”, when I looked at him he didn’t even muster up an apology or some flippant British comment, instead he met my gaze then looked straight back down. So on we go, through the turmoil of mutterings of oh I know better, all the way through to pain. The good point came for me when as I was getting ready to prepare to stand up he practically pushed past me, being never the quiet one, I asked him if he had left his manners in Dubai to which he was amazed and said “sorry boy I didn’t see you”. The only possible sweet & sour of such a story would be that as I picked up my baggage he was still standing hovering over his blackberry oblivious to the world passing, so there maybe an advantage to these anti-social devices after all!!!

p.s. the world goes on when you are in the sky, sleeping and driving so please don’t try to alter it, business was here before you and will be here when you’re long gone, enjoy the journey and look around, the girl/boy of your dreams or a perfect network opportunity may just pass you by otherwise.

Thanks, Michael. It may be, in the future, that there will be two types of people: the wired and the unwired. The first will quite literally be just that, outfitted with subcutaneous nano-filiments and micro-implants that make pocket devices unnecessary and render each person a walking bluetooth pod. The second group will have made the conscious decision NOT to join that new subspecies of homo sapiens, choosing instead to concentrate on the sapiens aspect of their makeup than their electronically enhanced counterparts.  

I know where I’ll be. How about you?

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By Stanley Bing
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