iPhone - Social Revolution or Menace?

I have a theory that the iPhone impinges on social interaction and I am sure I will create some sort of an uproar with this proclamation. Firstly, I am a proud owner of an iPhone 3GS and I know loyalists of the iPhone will attest to the iPhone's ability to allow them to be connected on social networking sites with just a tap of an application or being online in msn all day long to chat with your friends wherever you are. Looking at that, one might argue that the iPhone has actually allowed us to remain "connected" with people.

Walk out on the streets these days in Singapore and I am sure you can spot someone holding an iPhone in their hands either texting, meddling with some weird applications, waving it around like the whole world is oblivious to how you are embarrassing yourself or just simply staring at a video on it. I have seen primary school kids wielding it and even ah-peks (elderly men) who have to squint just to read the tiny text on their 3.5 inch widescreen multi-touch display.

In fact, some of you might even be reading this right now on your precious little touch-screen phone. Who? I mean YOU! You bespectacled little dweeb! Of course, I am jesting, you might not actually be bespectacled.

One might ask; if I was so opposed to the idea of the iPhone, why did I even get one? There were two simple reasons to that. I used to lug around a phone and an iPod, now I only need one gadget to satisfy my music and telecommunication needs. The second reason, of which I am not proud of, is that an iPhone used to be a chick magnet (come on! I'm sure some of you agree) of some sort, but the novelty of it has died off since kids have started using it too.

Don't you get annoyed when emails come through all the time and you feel an obligation to reply them because you have already read them?

Do you whip out the iPhone in the lull between placing your orders and the dish actually arriving at the table at a restaurant?

When everyone is talking about someone over dinner, do you immediately reach for your phone and log onto Facebook to check that person out?

When you are having a conversation with someone, do you find yourself glancing at your phone instead of the person?

If it all seems familiar to you, you are guilty of trespassing on the sacred grounds of human interaction. What happened to the days whereby you look someone in the face and have a real conversation without feeling the urge to check your email, Facebook or play a little ‘Paper Toss' (a popular game application for the iPhone).

Is that not enough proof that the iPhone is the devil in disguise? I therefore conclude that the iPhone is an impingement on social interaction. So keep your iPhones in your pockets and get back to basics! Start talking to the people around you and look at them while you are at it!

Life would have been easier if Apple remained as a fruit.

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Note: This article is the contribution of an independent writer. SAFRA or in2it.sg holds no responsibility over the opinions in it.