You say Luddite, I say Old School

The "Glee" kids sing songs I've never heard. I only recognize teenage tabloid celebrities if their parents were famous. I google the acronyms my cousins use on Facebook. I read paper books. I'm fine with all of this; I'm no Phil Dunphy, after all. Not only do I doubt my life would be improved if I could pick Justin Bieber out of a lineup, I'm secure in the knowledge that I don't really care.

Technology, though, technology I care about. And admittedly, I was a slow-starter. I didn't know what e-mail was until my freshman year of college. I didn't get a cell phone until 2005. I still have a PC. But oh, how I love the internet. Blogging was the Hall to my Oates, making my [wordy] dreams come true since 2004. Social media was the Dylan to my Brenda, capable of elevating everything I did while also being quite a time-waster when it wanted to be. I didn't get a smart phone until 2008, late for someone who loved being plugged in as much as I did. But as soon as I had a Blackberry, I was hooked. Hooked! And still am, although admittedly ready to upgrade to an internet interface that isn't the phone equivalent of a dot matrix printer.

Vintage Curve. Yeah, it's vintage now.

Here's where I'm going with this: I'm at a technology crossroads. My poor BB is on its last legs - I have to restart the thing multiple times a day or it gets cranky. My contract's been up for months, but I really don't know what I want. On the one hand, waiting for an iPhone (rumored to be coming to Verizon in January) could be fantastic, for lots of reasons. Then there's Camp Droid, which thinks iPhones are becoming passe anyway (T's HTC Incredible certainly makes a strong case there). 

My decision is more ambiguous and a lot more embarrassing. It's all about the keys. I really, really, really like having a keyboard. No, not just because I was the best student in 6th grade typing class and have fingers that can fly like the wind. Not just because my typing exercise at a Boston Globe internship interview in 1997 elicited a "wow." Well okay, kind of. I like texting with the speed of lightning. I like never having to look at what I type, just like Mrs. WhatsHerName Who Never Imagined We'd One Day Type On Phones taught me. I like the sounds and assurances of rapid-fire tweeting. I do not like pressing glass to "type" on elusive square "buttons," then getting the letters wrong, then having to go back and correct them, and then getting frustrated and handing the phone back to T to find his own damn directions. Yes, one gets better at these things with time, but how much better? Future tweets should not all come with a side of pissiness! I am the top typist! The top typist cannot be stymied by a missing keyboard!

 

So here we go:

Choice A: Overcome the obstacle. Press on. Own the technology. Make that glass screen my bitch.

 

Choice B: Play to my strengths. Find a phone that brings together the best of both worlds: awesome internet and confident typing. Meditate daily on how owning a Droid 2 doesn't make me a keyboard-dependent Luddite.

Call it as you see it, web-savvy ones.