MOBILE MANIA

         Once upon a time there used to be people who would yearn for their mobiles to beep/ring/screech/tinkle/sing/vibrate, or whatever it is that it is set to do when there is an incoming message.  With a smile on their lips, a crinkle in the corner of their eyes and a song in their heart, the tiny button on their mobiles would be pressed.  And out would pop a message, clever/funny/silly/rude/motivating/mushy/inspiring/informative-depending entirely on the tastes and interests of the sender and the receiver.  When the mobile turns mute for long, it leads to anxious moments.  The button gets pressed at regular intervals and checked to confirm, if indeed, the instrument is alive and kicking.  The SMS tone was literally music to the receiver’s ears-well, melody lies in the ears of the beholder.

        Then came the second stage, when it moved on from purely personal purposes to business purposes also.  Realizing the reach of the short messages, the pesky marketing chaps started peddling their wares and assorted services.  Everything from health hints to career guidance to love tips was compressed to fit your mobile screen and made available at your ‘finger tips’.  That is when the mobile started turning from an object of pleasure to a monster of hate.  Desperate situations call for devious solutions-and solve them, we did.  Haven’t we mastered the art of barely glancing through the sender’s name/number and decide the worth of the message and trash it promptly without batting an eyelid, that too, without even reading the message fully? 

            Now we have come a full circle and back to the days when SMS is always welcome but now, it’s thrill of a different kind.  Most of us have moved on to the bigger, better Twitter/Facebook/Orkut/MySpace and so, mobile messages which notify the status updates/tweets/scraps/comments/pokes from family/friends/co-workers to us are eagerly awaited.  The older version of SMS restricted interactions to just two people, whereas Social Media Networking brings many of our friends within its folds and leads to interesting exchanges.  We can hardly wait to catch up with our friends’ latest adventures, wise-cracks, photo albums, heart-breaks, gossips-all in real time.  It is quite obvious that the world is indeed shrinking.

            That brings me to my part of the story. I am on my eighth mobile now in as many years.  Don’t let that make you hastily conclude how fickle-minded women are.  I’ve sort of squared up on the law of averages which says that a rare occurrence will happen, given enough time.  So I have finally stumbled upon my perfect mobile-one that keeps me connected with my network of friends, family and colleagues, helps silence those bothersome callers, block out unsolicited messages, capture memorable moments for posterity, doubles up as my very own music and video player and most importantly, shake me out of my de…ep sleep with its alarm.  That was until last month...until Apple released its iPad last fortnight.  Now, I feel the familiar stirrings of restlessness…will history repeat itself…can I resist the temptation of the Apple?