Daniel Nenni

To me the term Smartphone is an oxymoron. Certainly these devices automate daily tasks and make virtual life more convenient for us technology bound people on the go, but smart? Unless of course you are using smart as a verb meaning painful to mind and body, because these phones can literally kill you.

How many people have lost their lives due to talking, texting, twittering,  emailing, googling while driving? I was almost one of those statistics, hit by a cell phone junkie driver while riding my bike, where a bike lane would soon be. Texting with friends was much more important than my life it seems.

Smartphones will supplant laptops I am told. Smartphone apps (software applications) are coming by the thousands I have read. Smartphones will make people dumb I would say. But I applaud the marketing guys that came up with the Smartphone moniker, delusional consumers certainly want to be smart!

Media phone is a much better descriptor, and I have the pleasure of being exposed to pioneering companies in this emerging market. ARC International for one and the plethora of Silicon Valley start-ups that are using ARC audio and video products to innovate the future. Imagine this: A home phone as a central station, a portal for all of your digital family needs: phone, internet, music, photos, and cable TV services. Maybe even home security, webcams, environmental controls (insert imagination here). With matching handsets for all family members which includes ONE app, an integrated voice/email/IM/Web application.  A lot like a future generation of Google Wave, which is very cool! I want to spend LESS  time with electronic  interfaces and MORE time with human ones!

For me it’s all about device unification: email, IM, Skype, LinkedIn, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Yahoo News, Google, my Blog, and my DVR remote. Like Steve Martin in The Jerk, “THAT’S ALL I NEED” to maintain my virtual quality of life. I would be happy to trade in my trusty CrackBerry, iPod, home phone, digital frame, and three TV remotes for one of those handsets. But replace my laptop? NEVER!!!!!!!! Stupidphones will never replace the beloved laptop, not in my lifetime, but they sure are making laptops cheaper!

One of the best graduation ceremony quotes I saw this year was from Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, sharing the meaning of life. Watch the whole thing on YouTube but here is my take-away from it:

“You need to live for the future, and the things that you really, really care about. To know that, you’re going to have to turn off your computer and your phone, and discover all that is human around us.”

SmartPhones are not human. Twittering, FaceBooking, Instant Messaging, Texting or Sexting is not human. Online Gaming, Maple Story, World of Warcraft, PokerStars, Second Life is not human. Online lesbian porn looks human but my wife insists it is not.

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

Sometimes my children feel I should apologize for screwing up the world: The GINORMOUS national debt, rampant diseases, mediocre (public) education, double digit unemployment, just to name a few. Now I have to ad the dehumanization of society as well. And to my children I say:  “EXCUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSE MEEEEEEEEE!” (for being human.)