Inspired by my friends who have expressed their irrational attachment to checking their email on their Blackberries, I thought I would don my behavioral scientist hat for a moment to explain why this is normal and natural…if still completely pathetic. ¹ The short version?

You are basically one of Pavlov’s dogs.²

Well, strictly speaking, you are not one of Pavlov’s dogs. Pavlov’s dogs had an involuntary response (saliva production), triggered by the sound of a bell. Previously, whenever the bell was rung, food was presented at the same time, and the dogs began to associate the sound of the bell with the food, and thus, the saliva.

You, on the other hand, you big ape, have been operantly conditioned by random positive reinforcement. I suppose it is an easier analogy to say that you have a gambling addiction, and your game of choice is the slot machines. Congratulations!

Your behavior (playing slots or checking email) is voluntary–unlike the dog’s–and only occasionally rewarded.³ You engage in the behavior more and more frequently. Mostly it is unrewarding, but occasionally there is that positive reinforcer giving you a little boost.⁴

So, there you go! You love your crackberry because you are a junkie robot slave to your environment! Any questions?

1. Though constant checking of your Blackberry is not nearly as pathetic as the conspicuous checking and responding of your Blackberry while in a meeting or conference talk. A former colleague–my boss’s boss, in fact–was notorious for doing this. Presumably he wanted to show how busy and important he was, though he was generally recognized by everyone in his field as among the most petrified of deadwood. Unless you are an on-call pediatric neurosurgeon or have responsibility for the safety of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union countries, you are unlikely to be so important that you must constantly be in contact and able to respond. It’s the pompous posturing of those with terminal status anxiety. Do not become this person.
2. If, Kind Reader, you find yourself among those with a Crackberry problem, then read on.
3. The reward for a slots player is obvious–a jackpot. The positive reinforcement for your crackberry has more variants–by a funny email, message from a friend, or other yummy tidbit of information, whatever you find rewarding. Sort of like a junkie who doesn’t care whether they drink, shoot smack, smoke crack or pop pills. Not that you have a problem. Go ahead, take a minute and use your Blackberry to look up your closest 12-step meeting.
4. This behavior is actually more common than you think, albeit revealed in lesser ways. The classic example? You put your money in a soda machine, press the button, and nothing happens. What do you do next? You push the button a bunch of times in quick succession. Sometimes you get a soda, sometimes not. Apparently, we get a soda frequently enough that the next time the machine doesn’t work–bap, bap, bap!–we bash away on the button. Even if we don’t get a soda, the next time the machine doesn’t work? Bap, bap, bap! See? We’re apparently just programmable robots, trained by our environment.