iNeed My iPhone Or iWill Die

When I initially bought my iPhone, I did so for convenience. It was supposed to give me extra free time. I was going to use the constant internet access to stay productive. I wanted to pay bills while I had down time at work, check the score of a game I was missing or even just keep up on my stalking by accessing Facebook while waiting at the doctor’s office. I wanted to fill wasted time with things that would normally take away from my free time.

My imagination provided me with visions of never having to be stumped by a question whose answer I knew had concealed itself behind a box of old baseball cards in the attic of my brain. What year was Teen Wolf Too released? Can’t remember, so let me just whip out my iPhone and check. That would be 1987 and, yes Jason Bateman did replace Michael J. Fox in the starring role. Super Mario Galaxy 2? Release date? Just a second…May 23rd. You’re welcome. I had no doubt that I would even sleep better, without waking up in the middle of the night to shout, “The Boy Who Could Fly,” as I remember which movie featured a young Fred Savage with a urine-filled squirt gun.

The iPhone has done all the things I thought it would and more. I can’t imagine life without it now. Do I have these answers at the drop of a hat? Yes. Do I use it to find directions all the time? Yes. But is it worth the price? I’m not talking about the initial cost of the phone, or the monthly fee to maintain the service. I’m talking about the time I spend playing ridiculous little games instead of doing something infinitely more productive, like eating a sandwich.

Do I really need to stop what I’m doing and play a quick game of Solitaire? Who cares? What’s one more game going to hurt, I have time. And one more…and one more…

Has anyone out there with an iPhone played Doodle Jump? The makers of the game have actually included a warning as to how addictive it is right in its title on the iTunes App Store. I saw this warning and thought, whatever (I guess my inner fourteen-year-old girl decided to speak up at that very moment) and went ahead and bought it anyway. I figured it would keep my sons distracted when I needed it some time. Quite possibly the worst decision I’ve ever made.

With the time I’ve spent trying to crack the 100,000 point mark on Doodle Jump, I could have built myself that desperately needed new garage. Or, I could have taken an extra job and made enough money to pay somebody else to build one for me. I probably could have found a job simple enough that I would have had time to sit and play Doodle Jump while I was there.

When it comes to being able to inject missing facts into conversation like I mentioned earlier, I find myself less often adding to the conversation and more often becoming hypnotized by my iPhone. No doubt, this looks extremely rude from the other person’s perspective. My wife and I will go out for the occasional breakfast and instead of conversing, we are both looking down, checking the latest news stories, or in my case, just skimming headlines so I can get around to playing Doodle Jump. Don't judge me! I’m smart too!

Anyway, a monster has been created and I’m not sure if the window of opportunity to get it back into the box has closed. Wow! Did I just mix my metaphors there or what? Let me just check my phone for a better way to say that. And I guess I could fit in a quick hand of Solitaire. Then maybe one game of Doodle Jump.