My email Crashed My Car!

Last Updated on: 13th March 2018, 05:19 pm

Ok, I don’t know how to feel about this story that Jen sent me. I feel like it’s a good idea, a bad idea and a really bad idea all at once. Let me try and explain.

Voice on the Go Inc. has come up with a system which people can use to check their email by phone. This, in itself, is cool. I have occasionally found myself thinking “Gee, I wish I could quickly check my email and zap the junk or see if Person X emailed me. But I can’t, I’m on a greyhound bus. It would be cool to check it by phone.” But it’s probably something I only wished for because, at that moment, I couldn’t check my email and felt I wanted to for some reason. I don’t know if I’d actually pay for the service though. But it might be a cool thing for someone who couldn’t use a computer for some reason or another.

The next second, I’m slapping myself, laughing at myself for wanting to be that connected all the time, and thinking about all those people with BlackBerries. Ug. Can’t people leave their email where it belongs? Maybe this is a bad idea.

And here’s where it falls into the really bad idea category. One of its selling points, according to Voice on the Go, is its ability for someone to safely dial in and check his email by phone, while driving! Nonononononononono! If you’re driving, you shouldn’t be doing anything else that requires a lot of concentration. End of story. Whether or not you’re looking at a screen is irrelivant. You’re thinking about your lunch with Bob, reading Sue’s funny poem, and composing a message to your boss. You’re not thinking about whether the light is green or red, fully paying attention to that kid that just ran in front of your car.

What is with people’s need to multitask while driving? Driving is supposed to take the majority of your focus. I’m waiting for the first email sent from one of these things that reads:

“Hey Bob. Lunch sounds…hey! Don’t cut me off! Good. Where would be good too…meeep meep watch where you’re going! go? Do you like Chinese food? I like this little place called erherherher smash clang clang clang honk…call 911!”

I wonder how long Bob would be wondering if that was the weirdest name for a Chinese restaurant known to man?

Don’t get me wrong, I think this thing has cool applications. I’m just not sure if one of them should be driving around reading email.

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