Can Barack Obama Live Without His Blackberry?

At least one source of domestic strife is to be banished from the Obama White House: Barack Obama is under pressure to give up his beloved BlackBerry. Aides worry his email could get hacked and, no less serious, all presidential correspondence is meant to be retained for posterity. They reportedly want to do what Michelle Obama - who was recently spotted slapping her husband's hand as he checked email during his daughters' soccer game - has probably itched to do for years: grab the machine out of Obama's tightly curled fist, shove it in a drawer and lock it away for ever.

As someone who has wrestled with CrackBerry addiction myself, I want to reassure the new president that he can get through this. He needs to focus on the positive: now, at last, time off really will be time off. On long journeys, he can gaze out of the window, rather than have his head down, glued to a little screen. Family time really will be family time, not just hours spent with his body present but his mind still at work. He will find his mental batteries start recharging, the creative thoughts flowing again - because, with the BlackBerry gone, he will be able to step off the hamster wheel and think.

I want to say all those things and yet I hesitate. For the President of the United States may be the one person in the world who really does need a BlackBerry. Not because he is so important and therefore must be able to deal with issues instantly: that was true of his predecessors in the non-BlackBerry era and somehow they managed. No, Obama needs a BlackBerry so that he can have at least one line out to the real world, a source of information - and casual communication with friends - that does not have to first pass through the filter of his advisers. Most of us would have more human contact if we gave up our BlackBerries: Obama may be a rare case of the reverse.