Control of the Sidekick on our lives

Hi! My name is Anthony Gonzalez and I am a Junior here at Cornell majoring in Animal Sciences. I just transferred over from a college on Long Island, finishing up my pre-reqs to go to veterinary school. I am a NYS Licensed Veterinary Technician and I obviously love animals, and my five dogs at home can attest to that. I am Puerto Rican and lived there for five years. I love sleeping and eating, who doesn’t? I am a reality show junkie and cannot function correctly without my weekly dose.


I never realized how much my T-mobile sidekick played a crucial role in my social life until I arrived at Cornell. For those who don’t know, a sidekick is similar to a blackberry where you can text, email, send pictures, download songs all with the push of a button. However, the greatest feature for me on the sidekick is AIM. Everyone back at home has the sidekick and we find ourselves communicating on it 24/7. No longer are we texting or calling each other on the phone, everything is done through AIM. So coming up to Cornell, T-mobile doesn’t have much service up here so my sidekick doesn’t work! The first few days I was going crazy, felt like I was in rehab going through sidekick withdrawal. I found myself not knowing how to communicate with people without the use of my sidekick. Sounds strange when normally you would just pick up a phone and dial there number. However the use of AIM on the sidekick was engraved into our minds so the thought of using another form of communication seemed impractical.


Then I began thinking, what makes AIM on the sidekick so addicting that we make it the default form of communicating? AIM has been around for a while on regular desktops and wasn’t as appealing as the sidekick. The synchronous chats on AIM provided the most convenient form of communication. You’re able to chat with several different people at the same time without having to stop speaking and call them back like on a telephone. You can just switch screens and continue right from where you left off. There can be no misunderstanding of what was said because it’s clearly spelled out on the screen. The sidekick is also great because it’s mobile. Being the length of a soda-can and lightweight you can take it anywhere and stay in touch with people everywhere you go. You don’t need to worry about people overhearing the conversation you’re having. Initiating a conversation is also much easier than over the phone. When you call someone you have to start with a decent greeting, "Hey Diana, how are you? How was your day?" then you can get to the purpose of you calling and ending the conversation "Alrighty, I’ll let you go thanks." But online you can just type your question "what time is the movie?" and end the conversation just as quickly "ok see ya then." With synchronous chats we are depending less and less on verbal or face to face communications. However, our dependence on technology may be becoming an unhealthy aspect of our lives, as we seem lost when the technology we are so used to becomes unavailable.