What’s a girl to do?

Technology is our friend. Until it becomes our unrelenting, implacable foe.

As it became last week when, in the course of 24 hours, my BlackBerry quasi-punked out on me and my e-mail was hacked. (Sorry about those ED ads, folks.)

The spammed-out e-mail will be resolved: password change, deletion or online contacts, and – if those “if it lasts more than 4 hours” messages keep going out, I’ll switch to another e-mail address.

But my BlackBerry…

I know, I know. Electronic devices tend to cough it up and die on or about their second anniversary, which I will hit with my BB in a couple weeks. Or at least mine do: my last four laptops all became nags headed for the glue factory as they approached the critical two year mark. And now it looks like my BlackBerry, trusted if not cherished companion of the past two years, is going the same route.

What is it?

Do they sense that they’ve been so technically outstripped that they become despondent and just give up?

My BlackBerry – despite being in what the Verizon tech calls “excellent condition” – doesn’t quite hold its battery life the way it used to.

Worse, the microphone no longer works, so I can only make calls using a headset or speakerphone.

Not that using the headset’s such a big deal – for calls over 30-seconds I tend to use it that way, anyway.

Still, I don’t want to have to fumble around with the earpiece every time I get a call. And I so do not want to want to walk around with a Bluetooth device clipped on my ear. No thanks. (Assuming it would work, anyway.)

I am not quite ready to make my move, but I am at the crossroads: stick with the BlackBerry herd, or follow one of the other herds to the iPhone or an Android device. The cattle are lowing… Decisions, decisions.

From all I’ve read, I’m your classic BlackBerry-er: my smartphone is my office on the go, and I use it primarily for e-mails and the phone. Yes, I text. Yes, I browse. But mostly I check my mail and make phone calls. But here’s the catch. I have a Storm, which has the touchscreen, rather than the QWERTY keyboard that the business BlackBerry pickers love. (When I went to get my first smartphone, that QWERTY keyboard reminded me of a 1940 Remington typewriter. I know, you can write the Great American Novel on either that 1940 Remington or a BlackBerry with QWERTY. But as – alas – I’m not about to do it one either, I just went with the moderne touchscreen.)

So, if I want to stick with my BlackBerry, it looks like the Torch is about to be passed my way. On the very plus side, it’s cheaper than the any of the alternatives I’ve looked at. And, since it’s a BlackBerry, it’s more or less a no-brainer, no?

But then there are my tech buddies, half of who seem to be Droid addicts, half of who seem to be Apple snobs.

Ah, the Droid… A dazzling array of brands to choose from. And 4G, so I can – what? – talk faster than I do already? And it’s not like I’m going to be downloading Gone with the Wind so I can watch it on a 3” screen. (Fiddle-dee-dee.)

Then there’s the iPhone, hallowed be Steve Jobs’ name.

I don’t really give a hoot about all those cool apps I’m missing out on. Angry Birds? Do I really need to add yet another pointless, mindless time-waster to my repertoire? I think not.

And do I wait a couple of weeks so that I can ask Siri questions when the 4S is available from Verizon?  Unlike the kid in the ad, I do not need to ask what a weasel looks like. So I don’t know if I’d be barking questions at it. But surely someone who has no problem yelling at voice recognition support systems – “Just put me through to a *@(#*&)*&!@*(*# human being” – will have no problem talking at my smartphone.

And while I’m on the subject of having Siri, are we really approaching the time when no one will have to know how to read or write? Or will this be like the 18th century, when only the elite – those few, those precious few, those 1-per centers – will be literate. For the rest of mankind, it’ll be the spoken word and the video, only.  So what happens if all this technology fails, on us, huh? Back to hieroglyphics and the Lascaux caves, I suppose. Maybe some cave dweller will recreate the alphabet.

Ah, well.

Sure was easier when the black, rotary dial phone came from Ma Bell and lasted a lifetime, wasn’t it?

Oh, what is a girl to do?