Digital Dilemma
This month, I did a story on how mobile communication is benefiting the people of rural India.
Its stuff like this that make you feel good about gadgets … that makes you realize it’s not all about making phones smaller so they can fit in the pocket of a ridiculously skinny pair of jeans or making TVs bigger so you can fill your TV lounge with more TV and less furniture.
Technology shouldn’t really be just about the aesthetics of the wow-factor. Sure, we love those slider phones and megapixels, but take a moment to think if we aren’t losing the plot a little?
In the race to buy the smallest phone of the biggest TV, are we maybe making compromises on what these consumer electronics are really meant to do?
Let me raise my hand before anyone else:
The phone I am using currently is gorgeous. I love the colour and I love the style. It's a MotoRAZR in ... what else .. pink. So what if it’s a pain to type messages with? So what if the picture quality of the camera isn’t all that great?
Hmm … not really.
Difficulty in typing SMSs means I communicate with friends and family a lot less these days. Who has time for phone calls anymore? I miss the days when I was able to send an ‘I miss you’ or ‘how are ya’ with one hand on the steering wheel (okay, I know I shouldn’t be SMSing while driving, but you have got to keep busy in that gridlock!).
The disappointing results of the first few shots snapped with this phone meant I soon stopped bothering to whip my phone out to snap pictures of random moments like I used to with my old phone. The result? When I archived my 2005 stuff onto my external harddrive, I has hundreds of visual memories of hundreds of moments … courtesy my Nokia 6600. On the other hand, 2006, with my new phone, is devoid of any such mementos.
Quite sad really. Makes me want to go flush my lovely pink RAZR phone down the toilet. But I can’t … it’s gorgeous. And therein lays the dilemma.
Are you letting your gadgets rule your life too?
Think about it.
posted by bakpakchik @ 2:49 PM
2 Comments:
i don't know why anyone would buy anything but a nokia. i just don't get it.
I don't normally comment on other people's comments (life's confusing enough) but I don't know why anyone would buy anything other than a Sony Ericsson...
...but anyway, that's not why I clicked on 'Comments'.
I kind of know what you mean, BPC. What I find even more annoying are scenarios in which you're compelled to buy a new piece of techno-wizardry purely because a gadget currently in your possession (which is in 100% perfect working order) suddenly becomes incompatible with all the other gadgets with which it interacts. This is what recently happened to my MP3 player which is no longer supported by Microsoft and Windows Media Player even though, to all intents and purposes, it is working absolutely fine.
Oh, and to top it all off, after I read your post this morning, I allowed myself to feel superior for about twenty seconds (thinking thoughts like, 'I'm pretty sure I'VE never been tempted to buy a mobile purely on the basis of its colour...') at which point I received a phone call from my mobile network informing me that I'm now eligible for a free upgrade and that I could get the new Sony Ericsson with the 3.2 megapixel camera in limited edition Casino Royale-inspired gun-metal-silver finish!
I told the 'friendly caller' I'd think about it and get back to them, but I'd be lying if I said the thought of a new phone isn't tempting.
Clearly, we're just too comfortable in the Western world if we have time to ponder such trivial matters... which brings us neatly back to the main point of your post, doesn't it?
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