bitflipper
Mobile devices are a widespread obsession here in the Philippines, and not just among teens. 20 years ago, hardly anybody out here in the provinces even had a telephone, much less a camera. We used to drive 2 hours to make a phone call. Now, everybody walks around with their head down, texting. Given the traffic here, it seems rather hazardous. 
 
20 years ago I captured the quintessential photo of rural life here: a guy with a cone-shaped wicker hat, machete hanging from a rope at his waist, walking his karibow (water buffalo) through a rice field. Recently I snapped a more contemporary scene: same guy, but with a baseball cap and AC/DC t-shirt, sitting on a berm in a rice field, texting.

I heard it's only been that part of the world that's kept RIM going. They love their BlackBerries over there. 

Can you guys please keep it down?
I'm trying to text here...
 
 

One of the things I hate most about texting and IM-ing is that people use it as a sort of "train of thought" vehicle. So they'll send you 5 one line texts in quick succession. And they don't care that at your end, this translates to "BING...BING...BING....BING BING BING"
 
The girlfriend does this. I honestly cherish her texts, but at the same time I'm like "could you not have just put all of that in one long text instead of seven short ones?"

This is exactly why my notifications have no sound.  If I see the phone blink, then fine, otherwise my reply will just have to wait!  I figured out how to set this in the middle of the night on the first night that I owned the phone.  I couldn't stay asleep!

bitflipper
Mobile devices are a widespread obsession here in the Philippines,

but a serious amount of electronics were / are assembled there.. IRC going back to the days of commodore..

craigb
This is exactly why my notifications have no sound.  If I see the phone blink, then fine, otherwise my reply will just have to wait!  I figured out how to set this in the middle of the night on the first night that I owned the phone.  I couldn't stay asleep!

The trouble is that I have to respond to business related emails and texts pretty quickly, so I have to keep my alerts on. I put it on silent in the gym because I'm looking at it frequently but sometimes forget to turn it back on and around 11pm or so I'll suddenly realize only to find 20 or 30 urgent messages that I should have responded to 4 hours ago. I do, however, set it to "do not disturb" at night. That means no alert notifications, but it will ring if someone's calling me. I figure if someone calls me at 4am, it must be an emergency. Apple did a good thing with the do not disturb feature, but they should have done it years ago. BlackBerries always let you define different sound profiles for different situations and it was easy to switch between them. I had one for "out on the street," and others for "in a store," "at home" and "asleep." 

When you're sliding into first and you're feeling something burst...

When you're sliding into first and you're feeling something burst...

craigb
This is exactly why my notifications have no sound.  If I see the phone blink, then fine, otherwise my reply will just have to wait!  I figured out how to set this in the middle of the night on the first night that I owned the phone.  I couldn't stay asleep!

This explains why you never reply to me..