My cell phone contract expires this summer so I’ll soon have to decide whether to buy a new phone. I use my phone, a Motorola E815, primarily to call my husband when one of us is away from a computer, and so I know I can be reached for emergencies. I pay for a data plan which I use to check traffic and sometimes the news, but the web browsing experience isn’t great. Once in a while I send a photo to flickr. So I’m paying for the capability of being easily connected to people and the Internet, but I don’t really take advantage of it.

There is such a thing as being too connected. I tend to think about work too often. After I became a mom and went back to work full-time, I made an effort to mentally detach when I wasn’t at the office. I figured that a smartphone with email access would work against that goal. But after reading a friend’s thoughts on being a “Blackberry Dad”, I think I could be wrong. You Mon is an old co-worker of mine and his wife is a college friend. So I know he’s not that dad who nods mindlessly, staring at his phone, while his kid is prattling on. When it’s family time, it’s family time. But he’s got the same (overboard) work ethic as I do. He says his Treo helps make him a better dad. He knows he’s connected and, opposite of what you may expect, that helps him focus on other things when he’s not at work. If something critical escalates at the office, he could quickly decide if he needs to handle it and save time later. I know I can be just as distracted wondering what may be going on as I can be by having email and Internet available. If I manage it properly, I can be an even more available mom.