Twitter and Facebook and MMS and SMS and my Kindle

I love my Kindle. I don't ever like to pass up an opportunity to point that out. It actually is an improvement on the technology of "the book" . . . to a certain extent. Mostly, it alleviates the anxiety I have all of the time that I'm going to be stuck someplace with nothing to read. I like the way that makes my inability to cope with boredom sound bookish, as if I constantly thirst for knowledge and insight. Kindle doesn't confuse me. It's supposed to be an e-book. And it is.

My phone on the other hand has taken me about 7 years to get used to. It's a Treo 650p. I've had a slavish devotion to having a Palm-based phone because I thought we had Palm stock. My husband told me nonchalantly a couple of months ago that we haven't had that stock for years. My phone has duped me into using it. I begin to eye my phone suspiciously.

Here's the learning curve on my Treo 650p:

2003: Husband bought me Treo 600p. I quickly learned to use it as both a phone and personal organizer. I could dial from my contacts list like a pro. I had no idea how to do anything else with it. Although I did run up a $1,000 bill in the first month because I didn't realize you had to turn the Internet back off after turning it on.

2005: Traded in my Treo 600p for a 650p using my school's technology budget allocation. Because I have no idea how to game these things, I failed to take advantage of getting a new cell phone contract AND some deal where you manage to roll two years of your technology budget together for a single purchase. I set the record for paying the most money ever for a cell phone. Continued to use as a cell phone and personal organizer.

2006: Learned to take a picture and assign it to a person's contact info. Learned to assign personal rings to people. Crashed phone assigning personal rings to people. Quit assigning personal rings to people.

2007: Discovered that "vibrate" is almost as loud as a ring tone. Learned to just turn phone off. Forgot to turn phone back on. Received no messages or calls for approximately a year. Learned to sync calendar wirelessly with laptop. Had already quit using Palm calendar by that time, though, and had no idea how to sync with Google Calendar, which I had begun using.

2008: Learned to take a picture and assign it as the wallpaper for my phone. Learned to check my e-mail from the web thing. Still couldn't configure my phone to get e-mail by pushing the "check e-mail" button. Whatever. Appointed to administration, where I was required to use Outlook. Finally figured out how to sync Palm calendar with Google Calendar. No idea how to factor Outlook into this equation. Contacts are still in Palm. E-mail and Calendar are in Google. Other calendar and additional e-mail is in Outlook. My task list is Remember the Milk. I use a service called JOTT to help coordinate this disaster. IT guy suggests a phone I'm not interested in and tells me to quit using Google. I don't think that's very IT-guy-like of him, so I ignore this advice. I learn how to Facebook and become obsessed. I learn to Twitter but can't figure out the point.

2009: Figure out how AND WHY to text message. I send pictures via text message. I learn to take video on my phone, but my phone is not sophisticated enough to attach the videos to a text message. I learn to update my Facebook status via Twitter. I learn to update my Facebook status via text message. People begin to follow me on Twitter despite my complete Twitter stagnation for 6 months. I take this as a sign that I should start Twittering again. I still can't figure out the point. I have finally figured out how to use every feature on my Treo 650p and conclude that I must have an iPhone.

The iPhone has a Kindle app. But the Kindle has no iPhone app. I begin to eye my Kindle suspiciously.