Cell phones are like leaf blowers to me: convenient, but obnoxious as hell. Call me Cro-magnon, but I’ve never seen the appeal of being reachable 24/7. However, I am slowly crawling into the twenty-first century.

I resisted having one until a road-side breakdown in 2000 convinced me I should. I have to admit, the flip phone’s come in handy since moving to a ferry-dependent island. Some months I rack up five or six minutes.

I’ve watched the smart-phone revolution from the sidelines, fascinated and horrified by pouting selfies, thumb-obsessed diners and throngs of commuters with bent necks and dropping heads.

On the upside, it’s hard to argue against the convenience of an e-reader, a GPS and the Internet, portable and at my fingertips.

So, I finally broke down and bought one. I haven’t yet figured out how to get my contacts into it, and I still prefer talking to someone over doing the thumb dance, but give me ten years – I’ll get there. I’m already enjoying the convenience of catching up with Twitter and Facebook while on the ferry, and I love being able to share “in the moment” pics from live events, like when I attended When Words Collide in Calgary.

But be warned! Pic-sharing convenience has a dark side. Last week I shared a piece of art I wish I hadn’t. Okay, it felt like art at the time, but it was my lunch. I’ve since crawled back up that slippery slope, but I have nightmares of making fish lips and snapping selfies in the bathroom.

Have you taken a slide down that slippery slope?

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