Sitting in a seaside restaurant on Sunday afternoon I concluded that we are in a technological world gone mad!
As we waited at the bar to be taken to our table, my mum let out an excited gasp, pointed to her iPhone 4 and proudly informed me that we were not the only people “checked in” to the restaurant. Oh no, we were in fact joined by other iPhone Checker Inners.
As a humble user of the Blackberry I can barely cope in a world of BBM, phone crashing apps and the mandatory daily battery pull, therefore I am illiterate in the many wonderful things the iPhone can offer. To other Smartphone users, like the HTC or Nokia N8, the iPhone will always be the oracle of them all with apps for your money, cooking, music and of course Angry Birds.
But sweeping the social networking sites now is the ability to “Check In”. I learned what this was from my over-techy-eager mother who, now in her mid 40’s with one child at university and another barely in the house, has two new babies in her life; her two-seater convertible and her iPhone.
You may now “Check In” to a public place like your school, university or this case a restaurant in Bournemouth but on a worldwide scale so you may see who else has also “checked in”.
“There’s a Samuel Zachary here too, quick look for a guy holding an iPhone, I reckon he’s quite young. What about him? Or him. Maybe that one...” I watched in a stunned silence as my mother eyed up every male in Aruba for an iPhone in hand. When I could bear no more and couldn’t bring myself to let this hunt continue I announced to my mother that this new app although ingenious is just plain CREEPY!
I understand social networking sites such as facebook and twitter where you may tag yourself and your location but when people you don’t know have the ability to see if you’re in the EXACT same place as you, that’s just strange.
As a news and status junkie I was always first in the que to jump on the updates bandwagon, I’m on Myspace, facebook, twitter and have a blog so am used to the idea of external contact from people you don’t know. But with this new “Check In” system are we crossing the line from the technology world into the real world?
I think this is definitely the case, the screen has been lifted and we are seemingly transported back 40 years when you are staring into the face of a complete stranger to make a new ‘friend’. It is definitely too far also considering my mum, marvelled by any new developments, would have gladly gone up to any guy holding an iPhone and asked “Are you Samuel Zachary?”
