by Mark Taoilinn
I have just returned from a two week vacation in Gran Canaria, the largest of the Canary Islands just off the northwest cost of mainland Africa. Sipping a cocktail on a sunny beach my friends and I got to talking about the harsh volcanic beauty surrounding us. While we chatted every single one of us reached for our mobile phones, certain that this conversation could only be considered replete with Wikipedia’s definitive input. Alas, only one of us had the foresight to purchase worldwide data roaming, and no one else wanted to risk the excessive charges for international data roaming (not at that early point in the holiday). Suddenly the man embracing the data revolution was chief amongst us. And it struck me – mobile phones really are our second brain!
This wasn’t a new revelation to me. My first round of jet setting in May brought me to RunRevLive.11 in San Jose, where Mike Gualitieri from Forrester Research presented on Mobile Megatrends. It was he who referred to mobile phones as our second brains… and my recent holiday made me realize just how correct he is. It’s not just google and Wikipedia of course – I quickly noticed that my phone wakes me up in the morning, tells me where to be and when, keeps me entertained while I’m bored, gives me something to do if I’m left alone for more than a minute in a coffee shop. And in a foreign country I rely on my phone to recommend what coffee shop to choose, and what restaurant, to tell me the weather, to show me how to get around. During my vacation I started to pine – yes, pine! – for my phone so much that eventually I was happy to give in and pay those crazy roaming charge (there was a conversation about 80’s children’s TV shows and no one could remember the names of the He-Man’s companions… “By the power of 3G!”). I literally could not live without my phone for two short weeks.
Second brain or no I couldn’t understand this overpowering need for technology. I went on holiday to get away from data overload – I handle communications for a software company after all, data overload is my default position – and I ended up craving it. It was only when I got home and watched a BBC program “Secrets of the Superbrands” that I started to understand what’s going on. Professor Gemma Calvert, a Neuroscientist with the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, examined an Apple fan in an MRI machine. He was shown photos of apple products and non apple products. The test found increased activity in the visual cortex of the brain, showing enhanced attention, when Apple products were shown versus when he was shown a rival’s products. And the research has found more examples of the same thing with all sorts of technology products. “Technology brands have harnessed, or exploited, the areas of the brain that have evolved to process religion” says Prof. Calvert.
So there you have it! The withdrawal symptoms I was suffering from were not those of a data junkie craving his info-fix but rather a religious passion to worship at the techno-altar of the information super highway.
Well, whatever it was, landing in Scotland and realizing that my data limited jet setting was over for a few months brought such a sense of euphoria and peace of mind that I was immediately motivated to sign on to Facebook and proclaim “Home Sweet Internet Accessing, Data Loving, I-have-an-app-for-that Home”.
And I vow, hand on heart, never to be without data again.
