Monday, May 21, 2007

I love you too ...

Mobile Phone!

Quickly .... what came to your mind when you thought about that? Yes, yes, yes ...... i hear it. It's almost indispensable isn't it? One of the few technological inventions that have bridged gaps quite substantially. As i found out, sometimes not the way we exactly thought, it did :-).

A few days back, I was browsing through the "features" of Nokia 6030. A fairly simple mobile, that promises music to the ears with its FM receiver and of course value for the money invested. When it was launched it was a big success. One of the features, i came across were the impressive in-built templates. (Main Menu ---> Messages ---> Saved Items ----> Templates). Yes, before you crucify me, i understand these templates are means to save time. They are to help you in sending a response, as some of the default responses are stored in these in built templates.


Sample a few of these templates:

1) "I am late. I will be there at" - Yes, agreed. You are late and thus, you do not have the time to type the complete message and hence you edit that template, add a time and lo ....... your job is done.


2) "I am in a meeting. Call me later at" - True. A booming economy, means business is bustling with activity . Considering most of us are "agents of change", we would be busy with our meetings. Thus, we being unable to attend a phone call at that point of time, seems justified.


3) "I am busy right now. I'll call you later" - As explained above.


4) "I will be arriving at" - Yes, its a dynamic world out there and who knows ...... what eventuality may strike and thus, our schedule is subject to change. Thus, this template.


5) "Meeting is cancelled". "See you in". "See you at" - Yes, yes. A combination of factors above.


6) "I love you too" - Believe me or not, that is indeed a template, that is default available with this mobile. The argument, that templates are developed after some amount of research done, it clearly goes to show how wonderfully, we have been understood. The research should have clearly shown them, that the most common exchanges couples would have had is the utterance of these words. Like, we following some of the customs without understanding, these words are reduced to a ritual.

A customary exchange of pleasentries.

A mere expected response.

A template.

:-)

4 comments:

Kiran said...

Oracle Workflows can be created to automatically even reply back with the "I love you too" msg when u receive the "I love you" msg.. u dont even need to waste ur time reading it and replying using the template.. :D
Hail Oracle!!! :D :D

Kiran said...

the person who has 10 coffee breaks, 5 news paper breaks, 5 ciggarette breaks and checks mails and chats for 4 hours at work can sure save a lot of time by using these templates to convey his love..
on a more serious note.. its pretty sad that such phrases have become nothing more than an expected, meaningless obligation..

Khushi said...

pssssssssst...
I'm pretty sure it is a MARTIAN who decided on that template! :-/

Jay said...

@Kiran,

:D. Who knows .... maybe this itself is the tip of the iceberg.


@Kiran,

Agree man! As i said, its reduced to meaningless set of words.

@Khushi,
Well .....