To the Dark Side...

When I was in college, I spent one very scary night walking from Rockridge BART station in Oakland in the exact opposite direction of the Berkeley campus.

I was with my friend Bonnie and, ultimately, we had the wherewithal to jump in a cab and have him take us safely back to our dorms.

It was 2001, and the only cellphone I'd ever seen was about the size of a small clutch and had a huge, plastic antenna. My family kept it plugged into a wall socket at home, unless we were in the car.

After the night of walking through Oakland, I decided getting a cellphone was probably a good idea.

My first cell phone had a bright green screen and black text. It was far heavier than it needed to be, and I kept it off when I wasn't home, insistent that phone etiquette meant I didn't answer it unless I was available. I would only use it for emergencies.

I am pretty technologically easy to please.

I'm not a gadget-centric person.

When I got a cell phone with a colored background, I was thrilled. When I finally got one that flipped open, I thought I'd made it. Next was getting a phone with a camera (this was only a couple years ago).

Finally, this year I upgraded to a phone with a full keyboard.

But again, I decided I didn't want the data plan, just the texting capabilities. T9 had gotten cumbersome and annoying.

Why would I need to be connected 24/7? I'm too available as it is, what with succumbing to Facebook (also only a couple years ago) and my blog, I'm pretty exposed and visible.

Then, I got a job that is more then 50 minutes away, by commute, either on two buses, a train and a bus, or two trains.

Last Friday, it took me 93 minutes to get to work. And 103 minutes to get home, on a Friday night, after a very long week. I waited for a bus for 40 minutes...

I can justify the extra $15 a month for the data plan I just signed up for in minutes sliced off my commute.

I'm sure it will totally be worth it.

But the ability to update my Facebook status by text message is just an added bonus.

(What have I become?)