Does Your Pocket PC Interfere With Your Life?

[Raphael Salgado]

It's called a PDA because it's supposed to be a "Personal Digital Assistant," but has your device interfered with your life instead of assisted it? Maybe not directly, but how about the way others perceive you? Does your spouse or partner roll their eyes when they see you staring contently into your device? Did you ever have your friends or family wait up for you because your device was in the middle of an ActiveSync or data transfer? Can you no longer perform simple mathematic functions or easy tasks without having to involve your Pocket PC?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/salgado-20060627-balance.jpg" /><br /><br />Since my new job next week is giving me a Blackberry with unlimited data, I decided to cut out the data portion on my family plan and sell off my Verizon XV6700 a little early for an experiment. After the first two days of having a "digital withdrawal," I finally admitted that I was able to concentrate more on my kids and my wife, performed chores and duties around the house with more time and less stress, and even spent less time in the can (sorry for the visual, but it's true). So, for me as the Mobile Madman, maybe the PDA might have been a PDI (meaning "Personal Digital Interference"), but have you considered the possibility for yourself, or have you already allocated some "away time" from your gadgets in order to properly balance your digital life with your personal life?

[jrsfau]

so what's your point? :lol:

[capo]

Just another heretic - trying to sow dissent among the faithful.

[Janak Parekh]

So, for me as the Mobile Madman, maybe the PDA might have been a PDI (meaning "Personal Digital Interference"), but have you considered the possibility for yourself, or have you already allocated some "away time" from your gadgets in order to properly balance your digital life with your personal life?
Nope. If anything, it enables me to get away from my laptop at times. To me, that's a life-enabler, not a life-distracter. The key is to know when to pull out the device and when not to pull it out.

(And, yes, Raphael's a heretic. :lol:)

--janak

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

What a great topic of discussion!

I think this really applies to technology in general but is big with PCs and PDAs. I'm often trying to challenge myself to use technology as an efficiency-enabler as opposed to a source of entertainment or distraction. A great analogy is the internet. Most of us can't imagine life without it and certainly, researching products or topics of interest is made so much more efficient with the internet, but how many people get sucked into more entertainment-driven internet activities for several hours at a time (e.g. online games, IM, media, news, etc). I know I'm guilty.

PDAs are the same way. Even at the enterprise-level, having a email-enabled PDA is great b/c it frees you from the office but if you spend every waking minute checking it and responding to it, what has it actually bought you aside from an electronic leash? For the workaholic types, it often ends up extending their attention paid to their job.

[gunerius]

If you're checking work email at night then the PDA is the devil's workshop, but if you're downloading books and quality materials and spending time with the spouse, etc. then it's a great tool. When I find myself sleepless, I pop into the e-book I just got from baen.com and read with the lights out! My wife loves it and encourages me to read more--about 4 novels a month without waking her at all! And the kids know I'm reading as well. (Plus changing the TV channel whenever I want to...). Just need to have cargo pants all the time due to the bulky iPaq work gave me.

[burtcom]

After work and on weekends, I have little choice than to avoid using the PDA -- twin toddlers see to that :wink:

But when the kids are finally asleep, the PDA let's me catch up on reading without having to put on a bright light and risk waking the little buggers.

Likewise I can stick in a headset and quetly catch up on vids.

Of course the PDA goes everywhere even when I can't actively use it, so I can dash out a quick note or refer to an appointment -- my little boy calls it my "brain"

[Brad Adrian]

I've wrestled with this thought many times, especially on evenings when I've spent three hours trying to configure an application so it'll do something that I could have accomplished in three minutes without it. My Pocket PC(s) have been a part of my everyday life that I can't imagine being without it.

But...

Because of an injury, I've had to spend the past six months without the use of my left hand. Luckily, I'm right-handed, but I found that my Pocket PC has enabled me to keep in better touch with my family than I would have thought. I haven't been able to type at my PC keyboard, so I've been relying on my Pocket PC and Calligrapher to take care of my e-mail. And, since I've had more time "on my hands" (pun intended), my Pocket PC has made it possible for me to write more e-mails to my family and friends than I did before the injury.

Interference? No way! (That is, once I took my kids' advice and stopped wearing my Pocket PC strapped to my belt.)

[ipaq_wannabe]

the only time a PDA (now, the WM5-based Sharp's Willcom W-ZERO3) interferes with me is when i first get the device, and start customizing it, testing things out, as well as making it useful for me in those days...

which means, sleeping in the wee hours of the morning (say, from 10PM to 2AM) - with needing to leave at 9AM for reach work by 10AM.

[r@dimus]

my wife has no excuse for any of that eye-rolling when i'm using my ppc considering how much time she spends on hers. :)

[sapibobo]

The only time when my PDA becomes my PDI is when it stop to working normally.

Sudden contacts duplications, unexpected hard resets, many freezes, and eternal non-working-alarm problem etc. Some times it takes many hours to rebuilt everything again. Thats what i call a distraction.

And speaking about alarm, it is still a problem. A PDA without capable of reminding me of my schedule..... I still rely on my old Sony Ericsson and Nokia for schedules. I use PDA for web reading, books and entertainment only, very ironic.

[Brad Adrian]

And speaking about alarm, it is still a problem...
This might not be the best thread for this, but since you mention it...

I was having problems, too, until I paid more attention to what MemMaid was telling me. It does an excellent job of detecting duplicate reminder entries, which can sometimes cause them to stop working altogether.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Interference? No way! (That is, once I took my kids' advice and stopped wearing my Pocket PC strapped to my belt.)
This coming from the person who brought us the now-legendary-acronym - W?BIC! (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7144) :D

[ctmagnus]

I find that with a little bit of discretion, it is a godsend. Too much time with it causes problems. You just need to know when to walk away.

[Brad Adrian]

This coming from the person who brought us the now-legendary-acronym - W?BIC! (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7144) :D
LOL!!!
Unfortunately, whenever I want to go out in public with my kids, they override W?BIC! with W?BYS! ("Why? Because You Shouldn't!")

[natestera]

yeah, I actually feel sheepish sometimes, especially when my wife gives me that look, you know...that, why don't you put that thing away look. Then for a brief second, I almost turn it off... Then I go back to what I was doing and forget all about it.