Mara Gordon | Connected 24/7 (literally)

I think it started over the summer.

Slowly but surely, e-mails I was getting from my friends started looking a little different. Nothing big, just a tagline at the bottom: "Sent from my Verizon wireless Blackberry."

Before, I'd only really seen it on e-mails from my dad and a few high-powered professors. By the time everyone at Penn had settled in New York for the summer, it was coming from everyone I know.

And now that we're on campus, the Blackberries are everywhere.

They're tucked into slots on the ellipticals at Pottruck as girls try to keep their RPM fast and their texting even faster. They're on Locust Walk; just watch out for kids who can't type and walk at the same time. They're under desks in class and getting dropped on the floor at Smokes. Even a TA in one of my classes kept checking hers during recitation last week, like a nervous habit she couldn't kick.

We have an all-out Blackberry epidemic.

I felt pretty lame when I realized I was the only kid on the block without perpetual e-mail access. Is everyone else getting more messages than me? Or more important ones? What were my friends doing that couldn't wait for a stop at the Houston computer terminals between classes?

Everyone knows that the volume of e-mails you receive is directly correlated with success in life. I was worried that without a Blackberry, I was headed nowhere fast.

So I turned to my roommate Liz, a lovely person who always seems more on top of everything than I am. She, obviously, is a Blackberry user.

Liz agreed to let me use her Blackberry for a day so I could see firsthand what all the fuss was about. I lent her my cell, a Verizon model I like to describe as "classic." And on Sunday night, her beautiful, shiny Blackberry was all mine.

She gave me a 20-minute tutorial on how to use the thing. I probably should have paid more attention, especially to the part about how to turn the volume down.

Because when you're important enough to have a Blackberry, each e-mail makes a little beeping noise that demands your immediate attention.

Instead of the gentle murmur of NPR at 9, I got a beep - much earlier - from Kelly Cleary at Career Services.

There I was, wide awake at 7 a.m., a bona fide Blackberry user. Then another little beep from the English minors listserv. Who knew that Facebook needed to remind me to add the superpoke application at 7:23 am? Being so connected was exhausting.

As I blow dried my hair, I chatted with a friend in London. The world was literally at my fingertips, even if the keyboard was a bit hard to use.

I still couldn't figure out how to turn the Blackberry off by the time I had to go to a Poli Sci class at 10, but I managed to get it on vibrate. I could feel my bag shaking with each new e-mail, and it took all my willpower to restrain myself from taking it out as the professor lectured. I couldn't wait to see what matters required my immediate response on the walk between College Hall and Logan.

All listservs, again! Carrying the Blackberry might make me feel more authoritative, but the rest of the world clearly didn't think so, yet. I'd have to give it a few more hours.

I met a friend for lunch on Perelman Quadrangle, and I carefully placed the Blackberry on the table between us and our sushi. Just in case anything new came in.

With the Blackberry just sitting there, I had no reason not to pick it up every time it buzzed. My friend's latest guy drama and her weekend out of town seemed completely irrelevant compared to this constant stream of new information.

When I pulled the Blackberry out to e-mail a friend during a boring meeting later that night, I thought I'd elicit cries of indignation or disgust at how toolish I was, but nobody batted an eyelash.

We're fully integrated in the age of the Blackberry, where it's totally socially acceptable to interrupt a meal or a conversation in the name of e-mail access.

As well it should be. Who knows what would happen if I didn't RSVP immediately to the Hillel barbecue the moment it was scheduled?

Mara Gordon is a College senior from Washington, D.C. Her e-mail is

gordon@dailypennsylvanian.com. Flash Gordon appears on Thursdays.

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