In the past few months, my avid interest in all things relating to technology has slowly been waning. Sure, there is still a lot of amazing tech created at a very high pace; but more and more, the saturation and competition seems, to me, to be getting out of control.
Compared to where we were fifty years ago, the nature of work has changed rather drastically. Plastic and silicon is the new gold; and while there are certain initiatives for “green” or somewhat vaguely sustainable processes, these slight shifts are driven by a desire for market differentiation, adding in that extra coolness factor.
The danger of technology isn’t in the machines themselves, but in the motives that cause their creation and distribution. I keep asking myself whether we need all these incremental improvements, drawn out such that each of the same type of company makes about the same device in each of the current possible means. How many phones or computers or machines do we need in the course of a year? Does it matter that there’s something new and slightly improved?
Machines make us more efficient; they help us in our daily lives. The trick, then, is in drawing the lines between utility and excess; and I feel that so much of what’s swirling around is now tipping towards the latter rather than the former.
I shiver to think of how many manufacturing plants are created and run for all these varied and yet rather similar devices; how many of these are created only to be tossed away a year later; and how many people are working in these horrible jobs in order to satisfy the “market’s” lust. Gadgets are now status symbol, and I’m not sure if or how this relationship can now become disentangled.
I should also point out this excellent post, “What’s your coltan footprint?” from Context Message, which deals with one aspect of gadget manufacturing and the mark these kinds of processes leave on the planet.
Why should the human experience be limited by need?
I know you personally have a current generation gaming system, a smartphone, a media streamer, and an eReader. Try justifying the purchase of any one of those through need.
The market isn’t some intangible demon creating desires. It seeks to sell things people want at a profit. If you’re really concerned about disentangling gadgets from status, which I don’t think at all is an achievable goal (and I think you recognize that, since you started off with gold, which has been a status symbol forever) then individual consumers need to forsake convenience and entertainment for austerity, and recognize and reward austerity in others.
I’m not willing to do so. Your purchases indicate you aren’t either.
If we’re talking about need in the sense of needing food or shelter, then just about any technology in the past twenty years can be tossed out. I do have a lot of stuff that I certainly don’t “need” in that context; and it’d be hard to justify that I “need” them in any other sense, too. What I’m saying is less to do with owning devices than it is the shortening length of upgrade phases which seem to be more and more prevalent.
It’s a throwaway pattern where the tosses are getting closer together. There are two major ways this pattern has been supported recently, first by a convergence of devices (why phones have been taking on more and more functions, for example), and by marketing oriented such that it becomes to be an important step to buy the newest and shiniest device that is ever so slightly different than the one you already own. Computers may be getting faster and faster, though unless you’re doing a massive amount of video editing it’s hard to justify that saving a few seconds opening Microsoft Word really is worth the $1k+ investment.
Branding and marketing is, I would argue, largely about creating desire. Everyone has their own rights to decisions, though those decisions are inherently infused with marketing. I’m not trying to be a moralist who tells people that they are wrong for buying what they want; but I would argue that there is a certain part of the desire that is manufactured, and that more often than not the next best thing is, in my opinion, probably not much better than what’s already out there. I would like to see gadgets have longer a shelf life than they do now; and I find it rather improbable that this will be the case. I don’t know how to change any of it, and it’s probably out of all our hands; though as G.I. Joe says, knowing is half the battle..
This is something I think about a lot. Both in terms of electronics and also in terms of outdoorsy clothing and gear (which are basically just another kind of gadget). I don’t like owning a lot of stuff because I feel like that puts the focus on what I own rather than what I do with what I own. My friend has a philosophy about buying stuff that I like. If he is tempted to buy something either because it is shiny and new or on sale, he asks himself if buying the thing would really enable anything in his life. This could be the ability to do something new or to do something that you can already do significantly better. When I apply this philosophy myself, I often find that what I already own is sufficient for accomplishing my goals. So, I agree that deciding when and what to buy has a lot to do with desire. The question I always try to ask myself is why do I desire what I desire? Not only is buying less better for the environment, but I think it does push companies to develop products that are truly better and not just incremental improvements. Also, If I buy things less often, I can spend more money on the things that I truly want :)
@kambel right on, man, thanks for the post!
I don’t much keep up with outdoors gear, but I have a couple friends who hike a lot. For them, it’s all about the weight of what they’re carrying. I don’t know much about the materials or what’s going on in these spaces, but textiles is probably not associated with technology quite as often as it should. I imagine there’s some cross-over, too, with various sorts of plastics.
Re: your other remarks, right on to that. Those are some great criteria by which to make choices, and I wish we as a culture would incorporate more of that into our daily lives.