Blackberry Anonymous

BB rehab is a new business I am thinking of opening not just because of my Ibo heritage and our need to run business upon business but because I strongly believe that in a few months from now,we are going to need it i.e. if we don’t already need it.

Peeps there is a disease reality we are living with in our society today and the diagnosis is nothing less than BB addiction.

Symptoms are as follows:

1.  Your BB is never far from you -practically always in your hand or at least 5 seconds away from your hand

2.  Every waking moment (and this includes first thing in the morning and even in the middle of the night when you wake up to use the bathroom) is spent checking and rechecking for any or all of these things: BBM status updates, pings, facebook status updates and tweets (then in my case add Linda Ikeji’s blog to the list).

3.  When driving in traffic, once there is a  pause, no matter how brief, you reach for your BB and do number 2 above

4.  When you do number 2 above and there are no new updates, you check again and practically can’t focus on anything else until a fresh update drops then the cycle begins again.

5.   If you have kids or a spouse, you spend more time looking at the BB and listening to them half heartedly than the other way round. This bad behaviour is also exhibited when you have guests or you are a guest.

6. You cannot imagine using another handset apart from THIS BB

7.  Your BB has changed wardrobe more than you have and currently has more outfits than you do.

8.       You check your BB intermittently while praying or reading God’s word, even in church you dey check status update i.e. if you are not updating yours….with pastor’s message or not….na that time you know say you be E-evangelist.

9.   You no dey take eye see envelope or blinking red light

10.  You have all the types of BB chargers invented so far and you rock them well . In fact you have spare batteries and re load your bb like a gun at war.

If you are experiencing at least 3 out of these 10 symptoms, then you need to check into my upcoming BB rehab….*Ahem* of course this will be after I can even boast of recovery myself.

When GSM made its debut in Nigeria, the madness  was about addiction to calls but you and I know we have since moved past that stage of this mobile invasion that uncle OBJ did not fully warn us about.

*Sigh* I remember when Rim was literarily begging the Nigerian market to give them a chance.

The product took over simply because of the BBM factor.

That is just the source of my own addiction. I can’t imagine life without real time sight of what my friends and family are up to. I even have some friends I love so much that I see daily yet I still feel like I miss them just because they are not on BB. It doesn’t help that they have sworn vehemently to stay away from it. Who can blame them? They have seen what it can do to people and like crack, they are determined never to do the BB thing at all.

Today I watched a woman get robbed of her BB in traffic because she was driving and doing the BB mania with her car windows down and this guy passing just reached into the car and took the thing away from her and crossed the road.

 My friend said she should thank God for that guy because maybe she was about to have an accident. I didn’t agree at first but well…it’s all in the spirit of seeing the glass as half full.

It happened so fast, her hands were still in the shape of the phone for a while….SHOCK!!! I stopped breathing for a moment because I thought to myself …what will I do without my BB?

This level of dependency is bad…it is bad…I wish there could be a gadget that will make me more addicted to God’s word like that…I need rehab.

Don’t even get me started on people who wear ear phones 365 days a year…WHAT????

Sincerely in my opinion, these habits plus the noise of the generator and television, traffic hassle and general mad hunt for treasure will be this generation’s undoing if we don’t slow down and make some lifestyle changes.

….Oh for the love of simpler times……I think I will start by going back to my Nokia…baby steps…baby steps!...let me try spelling discipline first *tough choices*