My iPhone Made Me Do It: Strange Things I Now Do Because I Always Have Steve Jobs in My Pocket

So technology is pretty darn cool, at least it is for me.  I have long said that my iPhone was my best technology purchase ever.  Still, the longer I live having "the whole world in my hand" thanks to Steve Jobs, the more I start to notice some of its odd and unforeseen impacts on my life.  This post is dedicate to the bizarre little tweak to my behavior that have their source in my iPhone being an intimate part of my life:

1. My bathroom trips have increased in duration by an average of 6 minutes and 23 seconds.  OK, I really haven't timed it, but I am sure I could  on my phone.  A timer is right there.  Let's face it, how many Facebook post have you "Liked" with your britches down round your ankles?  I can almost guarantee that I will be reviewing some of your comments on this post in just such a state.  I think I feel like I am being efficient by killing off a few work emails while doing as nature requires.  What ends up happening is my mind is still captivated long have my bowels have lost interest and there goes productivity.  But not loosing a chance to be innovative, I have considered patenting a pocket in your underwear (can't say it would work for thongs) so you have a place to stash your phone when your hands are required for other duties. 
   
2. I am gaining a new appreciation for Pavlov and his poor dog.  I am not sure about you, but I use my iPhone as an alarm clock and I always use the same wake-up ringtone so my head know  when it hears that sound to get out of bed (especially helpful when fighting jet lag during a foreign trip).  If, however, someone else has adopted my wake-up ringtone for their incoming call ringtone, I find myself jumping to attention not sure if I am asleep or not.  Things begin to feel a little too much like Inception and wondering if this all is a dream.  Very confusing.  I am starting to miss the good old days when my reality felt more like A Beautiful Mind.
3. OK, this may be morbid, but I don't like how you now know almost instantly when ANYONE dies.  Be it a family member, neighbor, celebrity or Brazilian soccer team.  If someone dies, you know it.  I kind of preferred the old phone chain where mom would call you up one at a time to let you know the bad news about Grandma.  Nowadays before mom can even get to you, you are just as likely to get a text "Hey dude, I just heard your Nana bit it.  That totally sucks!  Hope she left you something cool.  LOL!"    
4. Maybe it is the P90X3, but I get a fair amount off minor leg muscle spasms.  They usually happen right on that spot where my phone sits when it vibrates (I am sure someone will send me some cancer alert with a picture of a lotus flower Photoshopped into my thigh).  So when ever my leg gives a little twitch.  My hand shoots down to answer it like gunslinger finding only a motionless phone.  I could be on my phone, feel the twitch and still go looking for it down there.  I was even sitting in a hot tub once when I felt my leg go "waka waka."  Bless my heart (which I understand is the proper way to begin speaking about a stupid person) I went searching though the water trying to find my ringing phone in my swimming suit pocket.  I gave myself a nice "should have had a V8 durf on the forehead for that one.
5. My phone has helped me develop near ninja-like reflexes.  Being the klutz that I am, I am dropping this mini little computer all of time.  After a couple of years of training however, when my phone slips through my fingers like a star system, I can manage three grabs at the little bugger before it hits the ground.  And even then, if I miss it with my hands, I try to break its fall with my foot (though this usually just results in me kicking my phone under my truck).  I think I have become a veritable Bruce Lee, or at least a Jean Claude Van Damme  The unfortunate side-effect is that this reflex now kicks in when I drop a steak knife - not so good.  
6. I love that I can just shake my iPhone to undo a mistake.  Nice and simple and therapeutic.  I just find myself wanting to do this now outside of my phone .  "Son.  You realize that you just unloaded the dirty dishes in the dishwasher back into the cabinets?"  Grab son firmly by the shoulders and shake.  Though I feel better, nothing happens to the dishes.
7. Before my iPhone came along, I used to have scores of phone numbers just up there in my head.  Now I have to go digging through my contacts list just to call 1-800-COMCAST, yet for some strange reason I can still remember the phone numbers of my five best friends from the fifth grade.
   
8. I love taking pictures with my Nikon SLR camera.  I can blow them up, put them in slide shows, crop only a portion of the picture and still nto be pixelated.  Now that I have a phone and camera in one, I leave my real camera at home and am left with a computer full of picture that I need to process through a truckload Instagram filters and lens flares just to make them even remotely interesting.
9. I have 4,624 songs that I can literally listen to for multiple days and never hear a repeat, yet I seem to list to the same 12 songs over and over and over again.
10. I do miss the good old days when you were out to dinner with friends and you get arguing over which country is the largest mango producer in the world (I know, it happens to me all of time too) and no one could prove the other was right or wrong.  So you both could go home believing that you are brilliant and your buddy a door nail. Now, your buddy's wife can just pull out her phone and dig up the answer to prove you are wrong.; at which point you will spend the remainder of the evening arguing over whether Wikipedia is really a reliable source for information.