Addicted to Gadgets

There’s just something about electronics, isn’t there? We all have our toys; some of us more so than others. I have to admit that I fall into that second category. I am a gadget fanatic. I’m lucky that the closest Best Buy is forty minutes away, and moving away from Fry’s Electronics in San Diego has probably done wonders for my bank account. It’s almost therapeutic for me to walk through the gadget section in any store. I just like to look and play with things.

While I’m fascinated by anything that has anything to do with electronics, I don’t quite understand the fascination. After all, most of it is stuff that I don’t need, or will hardly ever use. Or worse – is something that I already have, just slightly modified. Technology is one of the biggest examples of consumerism at its worst. It sets you up to be disappointed and looking for the next best thing, because whatever you buy, no matter how cool it is at the time, it’s going to be obsolete in six months. You find yourself with a constant case of buyer’s remorse, wishing you’d held out just a little bit longer. That Best Buy ad is full of stuff that makes the things you already own look like crap.

Part of it is built out of necessity. After all, computers are ever-evolving to be faster, more powerful, and with more storage in a smaller package. So if whatever you need to do with your computer on a regular basis requires regularly updated software (such as professional digital photography and using Adobe Photoshop or something of that nature), you’re going to have to upgrade regularly, because the software is going to get more and more resource hungry. But think about it. Do most of us really NEED a new computer as often as we get one, to check our email, play online poker, and store our Microsoft Word documents? Probably not; I know I don’t.

I use my computer for the internet, almost exclusively, for things such as email and online bill pay, and I use it to store my digital photos and music. I’m pretty sure that the computer I owned five years ago would be able to handle these tasks just fine. Yet that computer was four computers ago. And I currently have more computers in use at my house than I have family members, including my three-year-old son. I know my scenario isn’t unique by any stretch of the imagination, though I’m probably a little worse than average.

It makes me wonder, when I really think about it, what this says about me and my generation. And it makes me wonder whether this kind of behavior drives the technology industry, or if it’s the other way around. Whatever it is, it’s something that most of us probably need to get a handle on, because this constant dissatisfaction with what we have can be really draining over the long term, and it can bleed over into other parts of our lives.  Not to mention, this gadget addiction can have repercussions in other areas of our lives, impacting our mental health, our ability to focus, and our productivity.

The sad thing is, after I’m done here, I’m probably going to go look at the Best Buy ad and drool anyway.

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