Mobile: A Hate Story

The longer The Internship continued, the more uninterested Jack became. He hadn’t heard great things about the film but his love of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson had piqued his interest enough to push play. Now, after an increasingly dull 30 minutes, Jack grew restless. Squirming uncomfortably, he desperately tried to find the perfect. Just then, he heard it. Bing Bing!

With sudden purpose, he darted off the couch over to his desk where his now fully charged iPhone 5S eagerly awaited him. Full of wonder and possibility, Jack grabbed the phone to see what the notification was. Since he’d been to lazy to change the sounds, he did know it was either Twitter or Facebook and that alone was a good start. Unfortunately, the push notification was something he’d never seen.

The tweet notification wasn’t a direct message, a favorite or retweet. In fact, the notification wasn’t really for him at all, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, it was a tweet by @BostinnoCity, one of the Twitter accounts he followed.

Jack was confused. Why did his phone alert him about this particular tweet? As Vince Vaughn laughed at him in the background, Jack did a quick “push notifications” search on Twitter and quickly discovered that this was no mistake. This tweet, like promoted tweets before it, was a new form of mobile advertising. He’d gotten used to pop-up ads while using other apps, like Sportscenter, Facebook or Candy Crush, but this was different. Too different.

Confusion quickly led to anger. Seeking some kind of retribution, Jack did what he thought was the obvious response to such a thing, he unfollowed the @BostinnoCity account. Sure this push notification was likely to be the first of many but Jack didn’t care. He secretly vowed to do the same to any account that had the audacity to trick him into thinking someone he knew and reached out to him on social media.

Putting his phone on mute, a still annoyed Jack trudged back to the couch and plopped down. After a few minutes, he finally settled in. The movie slogged along, never getting any better but an increasingly tired Jack didn’t mind. Finally, just as he began to fall asleep, his phone vibrated. Jack, alertly awake, didn’t know what to do.