Congratulations! You are the proud new owner of an iPad-iPod touch-iPhone-iMac-Droid-Blackberry-bluetooth-handsfree-wireless-Kindle-voice activated-3G-mobile device! You have officially joined the ranks of the technologically hip, but before you start texting and tweeting grandma or syncing your email to your coffee maker, there are a few things you need to know in order to ensure our success as an effective member of the *Society of the Future! (*Note: "The Society of the Future" is pending trademark of Apple Corporation).

Many mistakenly believe that mastering new technology means learning new applications, understanding new programs, or developing more covert ways to access adult content on the go.  However, navigating your way around the latest devices in our *super-info-saturated world means more than knowing your way around clicks and touches (*Note: "super-info-saturated world" is pending trademark of Apple Corporation).  It means adopting the right attitudes that make you not only technologically current, but cool.  Let's face it, anyone can wear a bluetooth headset, but can you wear a bluetooth headset while walking down a crowded street, remaining oblivious to fellow pedestrians, dog walkers, and street mimes while loudly complaining about having to drive the Jaguar while Dad lets your sister take the new Mercedes to the Hamptoms for the weekend?  Here are some critical tips you need to know in order to elevate and maintain your role as one of the *technological in-crowd. (Note: "technological" is pending trademark of Apple Corporation)

1. Know Thy Line:  The only thing that draws more lines than mopey teenagers writing bad poetry about vampires and werewolves is the release of an exciting new gadget.  Those truly deserving of said gadget typically begin lining up outside the store anywhere from 1 to 29 months prior to the release day.  You might think it's a big deal to be the first person in line; you might think this makes you special, unique. It doesn't. It makes you likely to get trampled by the 80,000 other people waiting behind you.  The technologically hip person knows that the key to waiting in line is appearing as if you're not waiting in line.  The key is a demonstrating a practiced aloofness, a measured indifference in all your behaviors that say: “I might as well be waiting for the Post Office to open.”  This can be accomplished by rigorous slouching followed by a combo of the periodic shoulder shrug/forlorn sigh.  Stepping out of line frequently to make phone calls or texts on your old, shabby, hopelessly outdated device by six weeks is also the mark of the savvy techno-consumer.  Though you should leave a little something to mark your place; we recommend an item that is small but noticeable, like a milk crate or a jar of urine. Also, disguising yourself as a homeless person is advisable.  This demonstrates your creativity and total disregard for real social ills, while ensuring your place in line and raising your techno-cool-cred.  People will say “Wow, that guy doesn't even have a home and he's rocking it with the technology! Way to embrace the future, homeless dude! Awesome!"

2. Think Outside the Box: A recent trend amongst gadget heads involves performing a ceremonious unpacking following purchase completion.  In most cases, the consumer typically films himself opening up the device, extricating it from its cushy packing materials, and waving it around in front of the camera while hopping about and shrieking like the chimps in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  This is ill-advised and in extremely poor taste. Don't people realize that sweat shop children in China who made that packaging are bound to see this footage and get terribly offended by the callous ripping and discarding of their handiwork? Instead, it is much more gauche to remove the sought-after instrument from its packaging in the following places: while the clerk is finishing the transaction, outside in front of the other 90 million people still waiting to get into the store, or while you are driving.  Your new toy will inevitably require you to remain distracted while driving, so you might as well bone up on your poor driving skills immediately.

3. Can You Hear Me Now?:  Portability is the hot buzz word in our accelorated *world (*Note: "word" is pending trademark by the Apple Corporation).  You will no doubt take great pleasure from carting your tiny, wondrous, techno-thingy around with you wherever you go, be it corporate meetings or services for the dearly departed.  In many cases, your very life, the very essence of your soul is coursing through the microchips, wires, and intricate nano-circuitry.  Consequently, it might be impossible for you to be without your precious device, which means two things: 1. You will have many opportunities to promote your technologically hipness 2. You will have to tolerate the technologically unhip, also known as "techno-haters," "progressively incompetents," and "Republicans."

You should feel proud of your allegiance to and nearly crippling reliance upon technology. This is not cause for shame, but cause for celebration.  Feel free to holler out your most intimate conversations, announcing every so often things like "Wait! I have a very important Tweet coming in from my one of my four thousand followers!"  Likewise, announcing every so often things like "Wait! I have a very important Tweet coming in from my one of my four thousand followers!"  Likewise, sing loudly to that Ska-death metal song, swinging your portable music device dangerously close to the mom sitting next to you on the subway, nursing her baby.  Lame. Doesn't she know there is an app for that? Even better, chat loudly on your bluetooth, while sitting at a cafe working on your lap top, watching Apocalypse Now and iChatting with your German lover in Switzerland, while tweeting on your Droid, and exclaiming loudly about how there just aren't enough hours in the day to read as much of War and Peace as you'd like on your Kindle. Don't let the techno-phobes among you, sure to "shush," shoot you murderous looks, and click their tongues in that annoying disapproving way like your eight grade librarian who never believed you were really looking at National Geographic for the articles diminish your gadget trendiness.  They are clearly just jealous. Or poor.

As technology becomes more and more necessary to sustain our superior lifestyles, it becomes imperative to be counted amongst the gadget-savvy individuals who not only deftly use new science, but who see no problem with mocking the technologically inept.  Remember to use your technology responsibly; it could mean the difference between being cool and being a *loser. (Note: "loser" is pending trademark of Microsoft Corporation).