Technically, I'm challenged.

Is it just me or does technology take almost as much time away from us as it’s suppose to free up? 

Don’t get me wrong. I am so glad we live in the era of computers and microwaves. I mean I make my living through the computer, I met and communicate with the majority of my friends online, and the microwave is my, and my cold coffee’s, best friend.

From my phone I can access my email, facebook, twitter and any other website or social media I need. This comes in so handy when you’re expecting the email and you can’t check your account every 2 minutes, hitting refresh frantically to see if the contents changed in the time it took you to register that the email was not there. Oh come on, I know that’s not just me. ; ) Or when you forgot to print out the confirmation for your daughter’s birthday party 10 minutes before the guests are supposed to arrive but, thankfully, it’s still in your inbox.

I spend about two hours or so in the morning checking various blogs, social media and checking my email. The cell phone puts that all in one place. It’s handy. When there’s something I need to tend to immediately, I know immediately. 

But lately, the bloom has worn off the rose. Between my Lynne persona and this one, I have over 8 email accounts. I say over 8 because I lost count. The most important of these is linked to my phone. I belong to quite a few loops and groups so I’m used to wading through 100-300 emails a day. But now, I also have to weed through them on my phone. I wake up to about 40 (from early-riser east coast people) and that number will easily triple or quadruple throughout the day.

I weed through these emails on the computer, deleting each after I read but this doesn’t do anything to the emails on my phone so each one has to be deleted from my phone as well. I know this sounds like I’m whining, but do you realize I spent over an hour just deleting emails from my cell phone today, put the phone down, made dinner and came back to 30 more! I’m afraid I’m going to wear the wheel out on my Blackberry. And folks, in an hour you can write 1 to 3K +, clean a room, do a load of laundry… come to think of it you can do a load of laundry and write or clean. (I love multi-tasking) You can read a child several books, organize a closet, weed a flower bed…. Get my point? There are a lot of other things I could be doing with that hour. Is this the price of technology?

The obvious choice is digest. It would eliminate most of the problem. But thanks to my Lynne experience on the other loops, I know I don’t read digests and tend to miss a lot of good information pertinent to my writing career.

Please don’t suggest that I just leave them there. I can’t stand that number on my phone indicating unread messages. Call me anal but that would drive me bat…crazy.

I also realize this could be part of my technology-challengedness (Yes, I made up that word—I’m a writer, I can do that.) So…I’m coming to you with my Blackberry in hand. (Unfortunately, I don’t own a hat) Does anyone know how to mass delete select emails from your Blackberry? Anyone invent a time machine yet? Tardis? Time turner? I’ll use it for good, I swear.