What Did People Do Before Smartphones?
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In 2000, I got the RIM 957, my first BlackBerry. It received, in real time, emails sent to my work account. Such receipt would cause the device to flash a light and buzz, pager-style. It buzzed constantly. When set just right on the counter, the vibrations would resonate through stone and lumber, alerting the whole room: An email has arrived!
Sometimes you can feel the future’s shadow looming over the present—formless, cold, Lovecraftian. So it was with the BlackBerry. Its capacity to inject digital events into the ordinary world even when they weren’t wanted inaugurated the smartphone age: one of constant
