LETTERS

Re “The BlackBerry accord of 2009,” Jan. 23

What an ageist remark by Roger Entner of the Nielsen Co. regarding Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s decisions to eschew e-mail when they were president. Entner said, “With all due respect to presidents Clinton and Bush, they didn’t really grow up with these mobile devices.”

This presumes these men are much older than Obama. In fact, the age difference is only about 15 years. Widespread Internet and e-mail use only came about in the early to mid-’90s, which would have made the 47-year-old Obama older than 30 before an affordable service was available to him. One would have to be younger than 30 today to have truly “grown up with mobile devices,” as Entner asserts.

Times are bad, with many losing jobs because they’re considered out of touch with new technologies. Although Clinton and Bush may have had their reasons for not using e-mail, Obama’s insistence on doing so was certainly not because he’d never lived in a world without it.

Michael Russnow

West Hollywood