To Be Young, Black, & Electronic

Sometimes on Saturdays, I like to get up early and drive to my favorite coffee shop. Here I can sip coffee and browse through my favorite magazines and newspapers. My favorite reading material tends to be VIBE, ESSENCE (I like to know what's on my sistas' minds), ESQUIRE, GQ, NEWSWEEK, BLACK ENTERPRISE, and occasionally JET. The coffee shop I patronize is in a part of Philly called Manayunk, where you get a cross section of people both black and white, young and old. It used to be that all of the patrons were doing the same thing I was doing... sipping coffee and reading. Now days, I notice that the patrons are younger, and the black patrons tend to be the very educated bohemian types. Even more noticeable is that there is less reading going on.

You see, my coffee shop has become "Wifi-compatible" now. Practically all of the patrons are now hooking up their laptops or sipping coffee while feverishly sending and receiving text messages on their cell phones or Blackberrys. Women are chatting on cell phones and teenagers are listening to iPods. (Amazing how fast CD's have become almost obsolete isn't it?). There's also a satellite radio station that plays a cross section of Neo Soul and Hip Hop over the speakers (which I find is much better than the dry classical music they used to play).

The last time I was at my coffee shop, my friend had his laptop hooked up and was checking out the sports scores from the night before. Me, I was still fumbling through the sports section of the local newspaper.

I look on all this with bemused amazement. I believe there is at least one laptop in my house and I may be taking that with me the next time I visit my favorite coffee shop and write this post from there. I'll be feverishly taking cell phone and text messages that day too. I do have an MP3 player with Jay Z's Black Album downloaded on it but, I haven't used it in a year (I gotta get reacquainted with it). Is there an I-Pod in my future? Sooner or later, I'm sure it will be.

I'm also amazed at how Blackberry's, cell phones, and iPods have become almost part of the modern wardrobe. Tell me, when is the last time you saw anybody in public without some type of electronic device attached to them? How many of you have ever walked out of your house without at least your cell phone? You felt kind of naked, didn't you? It was as though you left home without your pants on, wasn't it? (And, believe it or not, I have done both in my lifetime!)

These are really signs of our times... we have become "electronic". It's cool... I've just got to get on board. I will say that a laptop and a Blackberry takes up a lot less space than all my magazines and newspapers. Maybe then, I would have enough room to order another coffee and actually eat something!