Oh, evil Blackberry! How you’ve changed the image of man. I didn’t want to believe it was your fault, but now I see – you have squeezed these wonderful creatures down to distilled bits of byte/bite-sized communiqués. Wow. Thanks for that. Generally speaking, at least in my foreign land, men have never really been known for having intricate, mad skillz in the whole transmission of information department. Now, condensing things down to a maximum of 140 characters and a minimum of 3, they’ve turned already paltry word offerings into the top ramen of language. Sure, it’s tasty and semi-filling… but it’s a bit too cheap and easy for my palate.
Blackberry, you sweet, lusciously named device, your advertisements shout about your “Fast & Simple Communication!” and ability to easily browse menus, icons, make calls, send emails and texts. Whoohoo! What an incredible dream come true for any short attention span! And for the testosterone driven, task oriented male? This is the ultimate remote control of their dreams. It’s not that I begrudge them this little beauty in their side (jacket, trouser or shirt) pocket. I just wish it didn’t diminish their personalities so much.
In person, I know many men who can be engaging, witty and downright verbally effusive – then, they get on a winky lil’ mobile device and literally become “all thumbs.” In the last few decades, man may have created some incredible communication gadgetry with things like the mobile smartphone – but he is not the ultimate master of the tiny keyboard monster he has created. Because those opposable digits? Not so swift.
Recently, I got to spend hours in conversation with a man who I can only describe as bottled effervescent lightning. Intelligent, observant and wickedly funny he masterfully sprayed rapid fire comments right up until the moment he had to leave the building. The entertainment value could only have been enhanced if he’d had his own television show and I watched from afar with a bowl of popcorn (fast-forwarding through pesky interruptions or commercials) in cozy cotton pajamas. Seriously, he was that marvelous.
Throughout the night, like a true 21st century renaissance man, he would attend to his buzzing Blackberry, communicating with his many fans (he might not have his own TV show, but this guy’s got fans. Bonafide, head-over-heels, practically frothing-at-the-mouth fans and he should. He deserves them). To his credit, he was brief and discrete as he answered missives, barely missing a beat before turning back to the conversation in play – no turn missed. Ever. He was the Bode Miller, gold medalist of high-speed, slalom conversation.
Later, I got to be on the receiving end of the man attached to the Blackberry. Ooh. Not so pretty. Suddenly, the guy with the lightning-fast, Sheherazade storytelling talent turned into Calvin Coolidge, a man of few words (my favorite legend about him was when columnist Dorothy Parker said she’d made a bet with a man who told her it would be impossible for her to get more than two words out of him and he replied, “You lose.”).
Now, know that as one who loves her some Will Rogers, Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde – I have great respect and admiration for a pithy man, especially a quick-witted pithy man. But, I’m not gonna lie to you (have I ever?). The dearth of language once a man is talking with his thumbs instead of his gums is sort of like going from a wonderfully appointed Airbus A380 to a drafty crop duster. Oh sure, you’ll get from here to there eventually, but the ride is lacking. And bumpy. With a lot of air whistling past your ears.
Nope. I’m not a big fan of the handheld communication devices. But, unfortunately this is the way things get posted via FaceBook, Twitter, email and mobile phone and while it’s nice to stay in touch this way, I can only wish that the epigrammatic (the longest word I know to express short, concise and succinct) words carried more weight than the incoming artificially sweetened expressions that tweedle in my ear.
Perhaps it is all just in keeping with Calvin Coolidge’s comment, “I have never been hurt by what I have not said.” If ol’ Silent Cal had used a thumb-typing keyboard and the compressed style of texting to speak his mind, I suppose he couldn’t have said it any better, but it probably would’ve been shorter.
sit / wbs / cya / f2f / ok?