Obama and the Blackberry

I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone, but I suspect it won't be long until I get one; I had a phone where I could check the Internet abroad and loved it.

As you may have been reading in the last few weeks, Barack Obama has had to face the possibility that he may have to give up his beloved Blackberry, one of the ways the presidency is going to change his life.

Owning a Blackberry is hardly remarkable, and it would have probably been more surprising if Barack Obama--junior senator, law professor, and avid reader--did not have one. Nonetheless, it says something that our president-elect has one and does not want to give it up. 

*He's busy, someone who doesn't want to wait to read emails, and perhaps important, because he needs to read his emails.

*Obviously he has a facility with technology, a symbol of person engaged with the current in American culture.

*And to build on that, he's independent--he wants to read his own emails, despite being a senator and a presidential candidate, rather than have someone read for him. 

*The articles do focus on the way losing direct access to his friends will further tend to isolate him. But having a Blackberry also has its own intrinsic technological pleasures--I suspect that friendship is only part of the reason he wants to give up his Blackberry.  Knowing what is happening with the world, on your own terms, with your own effort (by clicking and scrolling) is one of the joys of the Web. Of course, being president allows a certain amount of control too....

--J.S.