Linisa George concludes her 2-part story about the perils of Blackberry etiquette.  See here for part 1.

But I found the gruesome online pictures of an accident that happened a year ago on the Airport Road, a cause for concern. Someone had uploaded pictures within minutes of the accident, close-up shots of the mangled body of a young man as he lay in pain, his body trapped in his crushed car. The disturbing thing was, suppose I was the mother or father or sister or girlfriend of that young man, and I had that phone user on my friends list. Imagine the kind of terror that would go through my body if that was the way I discovered something had happened to my loved one. I don’t know about you, but I am not being dramatic, I would have been even more devastated. Needless to say the young man died. PING!

I know many Blackberry users will look at this article and just think that I am just being a …….., well you know what you think I am being. I was given a Blackberry last year for my birthday, but I never used it. Don’t get me wrong, I do see the practical and useful need for a Blackberry, in my line of work I could greatly use it. But if you are to be honest with yourself, most persons that own the phone, have no real need for it, well if you count out posting on your profile, "Hey I’m at the bank, and the teller has a big hickey on the side of her neck"..” PING!

I just wish people would maintain some form of etiquette when it comes to the use of the device. In addition, please and I really do mean this, please don’t give your teenager a Blackberry, there really is no essential need to. Also try to be conscious of your environment, and aware of what and when is appropriate to extract your phone. Being the paparazzi should be left up to the paparazzi, no real need to take pictures and post them to have a good laugh at someone else’s expense. My most important request is to maintain face-to-face or voice-to-voice form of communication. You miss out on the real human emotions, whether good or bad, when you just keep typing away with ‘LOLs’ and using smiley faces. I know technology is more advanced now than ever, but personal interaction should always be your first choice. Don’t make the small keys and the trackball be your sole insight into humanity.

Maybe I will use the Blackberry after all. For right now I am too scared to become a slave like everyone else that I guess I am unconsciously fighting with my want to have one. Oh well, I will survive with my two phones; the Nokia 3390 (the phone booth as my friends call it, and yes they still manufacture them) and my ‘wan-na-be’ Blackberry (My Samsung phone that has Wi-Fi capabilities that I refuse to utilise). All in all, I am fine being comfortable when my phones fall a million times a day, or ends up in water for ten seconds. I just open them up, and use my trusty blow-dryer, and they are brand new again. You won’t see me crying buckets of tears when a trackball falls out, or my Blackberry phone gets lost or stolen. I just need to make and receive calls, with an occasional text message here and there. "Crackberry" addict I am not, PING!