Quinn+H.

Survival of the Fittest, a Love Story about the iphone

I love the iphone. It is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I touch at night. I check on it countless times a day. I’m cautious when I put it down on any surface and check its safety in my pocket on the subway or even when walking. I found that I was so careful with the treatment of this phone that I didn’t even need a bulky protector case (In fact, I think the phone is more attractive with out them). The iphone 5 costs a fortune. Even when you have great deal, its still somehow a fortune......and yet I pay this fortune despite only using limited parts of the technology available. What strange about my relationship with my phone is that I’m not into tech. I understand that its important but I’m not comfortable using it; in fact, I don’t venture near many aspects of my own phone. I would say, though I have not done a longitudinal study, that I only use 25% of what the phone has to offer.

I think my love started when I moved to NYC. The experience is exciting and overwhelming. It starts with the most stressful exercise of all: finding an apartment. I arrived in NYC from D.C., when I attended American University. Anyone who has been to D.C. knows that navigating the mass circle of avenues named after states that surround the capital is not easy. But in D.C., you only want to go to two or three places and there are only a couple of trains. NY is massive in comparison. When you arrive everyone who lives here, who has ever been, or ever plans on coming tells you there is so much to do! What is it and how do you get there? Navigating my way around is totally due to valiant effort of siri and google maps. I do not know how people survived before the smart phone. How did people find things like sushi or a barber shop or trader joes! The iphone creates order out of chaos and I am wholly dependent on its guidance. There are few aspects of ones life that are not directly impacted by their smart phone. It maintains relationships, it tells me when to get up, it tells my students how long they have on an exit ticket, what the congress is doing, and even rings when there is a flash flood in Harlem!!! Its role and power is ubiquitous. It also has the ability to make us more equal but granting people equal access to the same information and tools for organizing their life. No longer is living in the city a test of who can adapt the fastest……I have an iphone to help! I may survive here despite not being the fittest.