Addicted to Blackberry?

I was very pleasantly surprised when I was doing research for this week’s topic. When I searched for “Blackberry Addiction” on Google, the first text article that came up was from The Daily Mail, the British newspaper. In that (and a good number of other articles) was mention of research done at “New Jersey's Rutgers University School”, led by Professor Gayle Porter. I thought that was wonderful that research being done at my Alma Mater and place of present study was so highly respected that it was invoked across the pond, even though “university school” is a funny name.

The reason that I am interested in Blackberry addiction is this: Many of my peers, who nearly all are college students without pressing jobs or family concerns, have Blackberries. Why could they possibly need such an annoying, expensive device? There is no need to constantly check email- at school a computer is never more than a few minutes away, and the vast majority of people have personal computers and internet connections in their houses or dorms.

The research and the article claim that people are, in fact, addicted to email on their cellular phones. Sinead McIntyre claims in the article that “Blackberry email devices can be so addictive that owners may need to be weaned off them with treatment similar to that given to drug users, experts warn.” This obviously is a serious threat to mental health of the user and those around them.

Other commentators online have said that Blackberries have actually liberated them. They say that instead of checking email from a computer, they are able to do it at their leisure. This allows them to better sort through spam and unimportant email. Interestingly, they also report that the device forces them to cut down on the length of emails they send because it is difficult to type long messages.

One thing that made me wonder was that the author of the article defending blackberries was proud that she had not checked her email in the past hour. “That proves I’m not addicted!” she claimed. But she did admit to taking the device everywhere, and even composing emails while walking her dog. I would like to know if she could actually go without checking her blackberry for a period of time.

Another interesting phenomenon is that some Blackberry users are actually proud of being addicted to their devices. At least, they readily admit their perceived need of their Berries and do not plan to do anything about it. Many people refer to these devices as “Crackberries”, in reference to their supposed addictive nature. (Crack is addictive, get it?) Though most use the term “Crackberry” to insult Blackberries, some users have embraced that moniker. I visited the page www.crackberry.com and it proudly heralds itself as “The number one site for Blackberry Users (and Abusers!)

I think that they all see it as a big joke, offering tongue-in-cheek articles like “The Thirteen Steps to Breaking a Crackberry Addiction” and commonly calling other users of the devices addicts. I don’t know about you, but that raises an alarm to me.

Perhaps Blackberries aren’t all that bad. I’ve never had one, so I really can’t say. Perhaps they are a tool that actually makes less work, and not more. But I feel like people are really missing out on wonderful things happening in front of their faces because their eyes are glued to that darn little screen.