CrackBerry Mania

Apple recently unveiled its iPhone to much hoopla. Along with rave reviews for Steve Jobs’ labor of love have come a new spate of reports in the media blaming Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for everything from causing Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) to ruining marriages. A recent Forbes article was even entitled “Is Your BlackBerry Ruining your Sex Life?” These reports have been targeted at members of the workforce—from the up-and-coming attorney to the Fortune 500 CEO—yet have failed to account for the newest class of “CrackBerry” addicts: Harvard students.

So if the BlackBerry can wreak such havoc upon the lives of businessmen that it is nicknamed after a deadly street drug, how will it affect impressionable undergraduates? It certainly won’t damage our sex lives as much as weekend, take-home exams already do. Nor is it liable to induce ADD in a generation already accustomed to simultaneously writing papers and posts to instant messenger. The main danger of the PDA’s campus invasion is the potential for it to become a must-have luxury item amongst students, proving yet again how unbearably wonkish and overly serious Harvard’s undergraduates are.

While PDA-wielding students still number in the minority, they are becoming a visible blight on campus. Students can be seen strolling around the yard with Treo “smartphones” clasped to their ears or in dining halls typing furiously on tiny QWERTY keyboards. University Health Services must be growing accustomed to bandaging bleeding cuticles.

Much as we love to believe our lives to be ever-so demanding and hectic, there’s little reason to think such devices necessary for most of us. While a particularly busy student in a leadership position—the Undergraduate Council President, for example—might derive some benefit from being able to manage his life with a PDA, that is not the case for most.

PDAs are also expensive. Undergraduate Daniel A. Ford ’08, who recently purchased a Cingular Blackjack, laments his new phone’s cost: “My cell phone bill is $30 for the Internet, $10 for text messages, and $60 for a medium-minutes package. That’s 100 bucks a month, or $1,200 a year, which is really a lot when you think about it. That’s 30 fifths of Maker’s Mark, and honestly I would rather have the latter.”

Despite this hefty price tag, a number of undergrads tote such phones around largely to show off. Right now their ranks are small enough that others do not feel compelled to follow suit, but as the number of PDAs on campus grows, that could change. In a worst-case scenario, PDAs, which can increase cell phone bills by up to $50 per month, will become ubiquitous symbols of privilege on campus. In other words, the PDA is on the cusp of becoming must-have, ivory tower “bling,” a nauseating prospect.

At most other colleges, a student with cash to burn is likely to purchase a new Playstation 3. We splurge on incessantly blinking, cinderblock-sized phones. The former provides escapist fun; the latter ostensibly enhances productivity. The fact that such a gadget is fast becoming the trendiest luxury item in the Yard is a good indicator of how overly serious—and seriously un-hip—Harvard students are. Is it any wonder the administration deemed a fun czar necessary?

In no time, Wall Street employers will be arming us with PDAs to help us better cope with 100-hour workweeks. Until then, let’s ditch the Treos, tap a few kegs instead of keys, and try to behave more like the college students we are.


Stephen C. Bartenstein ’08, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator in Lowell House.