It all began as a normal day with my usual morning routine. I rolled out of bed way later than I should have, slipped on the first clothes I could find and went to do my business in the bathroom.
Obviously none of this could be done without my trusty iPhone.
I was sitting on my glorious porcelain throne checking Twitter, playing some solitaire, and reading my favorite entertainment news sites when the unthinkable happened. My phone fell in the murky waters.
It was like watching a child drown. My parental instincts immediately kicked in. I had to rescue my baby. Yes, it was disgusting, but my sanity was at stake. The mission was seemingly successful. Sure, the home button took a little more oomph to press, but I thought the damage was kept to a minimum.
But later that day things began to change. None of my music would play and apps would crash unexpectedly. Of course AT&T did absolutely nothing but secretly refer me to a cell phone repair service.
The posters on the wall made promises that this shop could fix any problem. These turned out to be the most vicious of lies. Not only did this little hellhole not fix my iPhone, they had the audacity to make the problems even worse.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself. In the meantime, they loaned me a loaner phone. Now, this was no ordinary phone. This phone had the ability to make calls and send text messages. That’s it. No Internet, no apps, no MP3 player, and the only game was completely unplayable (damn those little buttons).
My first thought was to panic. How would I live? How would I fall asleep? How would I go to the bathroom? This made me realize just how addicted to my iPhone I truly was.
But there were a few positives to this fiasco. My friends told me I was more engaged in conversations, meaning I actually spoke to them. I could watch movies and actually engage with them, and I started going to bed at a decent hour.
These good feelings didn’t last forever, though. The withdrawals soon started to kick in. Cold sweats, jitters and an overall sense of paranoia dominated my lonely nights.
I began to recognize that I wasn’t alone in this dependence. Millions of people experience the same kind of cravings for smartphones that I do. And though my generation may be the worst of them all, older generations are quickly creeping up on us.
On any evening at my house, you can walk in the living room to find both of my parents on their iPhones barely watching their supposedly favorite TV shows. It’s becoming human nature.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love my iPhone and it loves me just the same. I would be lost without it. How would anybody know where I was if I couldn’t check in on Foursquare? How would I buy movie tickets if it weren’t for my Fandango app? And how would my 170 Twitter followers survive without my hilarious thoughts on the world around me?
Smartphones were made for a reason: to make our lives easier. We shouldn’t be ashamed to embrace the latest and greatest technology, even if it’s for the most trivial of tasks.
Oh, and in case anybody was wondering, I got the smashed screen fixed on a previous iPhone of mine, free of charge. Sure, it’s only the 3G model, but the glorious iPhone 5 will be mine before I know it!