Tuesday, I finally arrived home after attending the Winter Democratic National Committee Meeting as a guest. The meeting was not scheduled to last that long, but this giant winter storm that even Obama called snowpocalypse had a significant portion of attendees stuck in a winter wonderland version of our nation’s capitol.
Fortunately, I was in great company, and I ended up having an amazing time. I wasn’t able to visit the Smithsonian, but I was able to walk/slide across the frozen reflecting pond and spend time with some great people. The DNC itself is an interesting sampling of age groups with which to be snowed in. It literally includes members from all states and abroad, and all age groups over 18. They also tend to be particularly well connected. It was an interesting opportunity to notice some trends not only among Gen Y aka millennials, but also more generally.
The storm was truly remarkable, especially for a Texas girl. This might shock some, but since I was not planning on working, I chose to leave my laptop behind, bringing only my iPhone and I was truly surprised by my altered level of connectivity.
I realized several important things during my stay. Some things did not change. I was able to take and post pictures to Facebook in real time, just as I normally do. I was able to text, tweet, and check my email. Everyone I knew in attendance had a smart phone and was doing the same thing. We used our mobile devices to check weather and find places to eat that were open even in the storm. Since I have spent less time in DC than most of the people there, I used my phone as a map constantly. All of these things are normal, some things I noticed, weren’t so much.
There is one thing that may be interesting to the iPhone vs. Blackberry people in particular. The business world , in particular the legal industry, generally use Blackberries instead of iPhones. This trend does exist in my generation; however, it seems to be changing.The young political people I know, many of them lawyers or someday lawyers, have iPhones instead of Blackberries. And, the few I know who chose Blackberries did so because the Blackberry was more affordable.
Another thing I noticed was more personal. It seems to me that your choice of social network truly is contagious. I use Twitter very rarely, however, I tweeted far more on this trip than on a normal weekend. Not because I had more than usual to say but simply because the people around me were using Twitter. The more they tweeted, the more I did. Twitter has become a strong force in the political field and, these people are turned on to it. They use it constantly, and that behavior is contagious both directly (to me, standing next to them) and indirectly (to their followers).
Another surprising side effect of the storm was that, many young people around me were forced to sit down and be still for long enough to listen to a whole TV news story about the weather for the first time in recent memory. I never expected a storm to cause me to rely more on TV than normal, but honestly, with weather, it is still the best way to get up to the minute local and emergency information.
It was also interesting to witness an older generation forced to rely on mobile devices more than normal. On more than one occasion I witnessed people over the age of 50 using tools on their phones that they were not used to using, searching for cab services a map, or information on cancelled flights.
Finally, I was mystified by how off the grid I actually was. I felt like with a combination of TV and my iPhone, I had stayed well informed, but I quickly found out that I missed several major developments in the digital world. The first was Google’s new tool Buzz, which I did not come in contact with because I accessed my email through the email tool on my phone. The second was the “new Facebook”, Add another short sentence here. Overall, I learned some new things about both smartphone usage in general, and under duress, it seems we’re not always behaving the way we expect.
Note: Today in Dallas it has snowed 8 inches.
-Emma Vernon
