What’s wrong with the right now?
My wife and friends are constantly getting on me for not progressing with technology and embracing the “next thing.” I don’t understand why I can’t keep what is available now and hang on to it for longer than a couple of years.
Take CDs of the 90s for example. They are smaller than records of the 70s, easier to manage than cassette tapes of the 80s, but people are abandoning it for digital music on iPods. I am fine with the iPod. My wife has one and I think it is great that you can listen to thousands of songs at random while doing literally anything in the world, from mowing the lawn and driving a car to sitting in your living room or cooking in the kitchen. That is great. But why do we have to turn our back on the previous source of technology? Why can’t I hang on to CDs and everything that entails, which includes browsing for them in music stores and holding the liner notes in my hand as I read about who the band is that made this album.
An argument I’ve heard against the CD is it takes up too much space. I have four folders full of CDs in my car for different genres of music and those cases take up less space than my daughter’s toys that are strewn across the backseat of the car. The same argument is made about DVDs and books that are on our shelves at home. Having movies and literature on our laptops is the future. Well I like having a bookshelf full of books. I enjoy standing in front of my DVD collection, wondering what movie I want to pick out.
I just don’t get why we have to be so attached to our computers for everything we do. My wife’s relentless reading of Facebook status updates and comments in the car drives me bonkers. How about you look out the window at the world going on around you instead of burying yourself in a digital world that is all about self-promotion and egotism? Amassing a small colony of Twitter followers and Facebook friends is the newest form of status symbol, like wearing Abercrombie & Fitch was in the new millennium or being a fat socialite in the early 18th century.
While I may seem to be against technology, that is not completely true. I am all for finding ways to make life easier, but having an electronic book is not easier. It is a parallel move from holding paper on your couch to holding a machine on your couch. That doesn’t improve our lifestyle in any way, so why do away with books.
What I really want is for the world around me to continue progressing with technology while preserving the older forms of things so that I can keep my CDs, books, DVDs and other stuff for more than five years at a time before upgrading to the next “latest and greatest thing.”
Oh, and I also don’t want 3D televisions to succeed. I think 3D is a stupid gimmick that should have died with disco music and Jim Morrison.
1 comment:
Nice. I agree with you about 3D tv. I don't think it'll take off until they figure out how to dispose of those retarded glasses.
I'm of the variety who buys a thing and uses it until it is dead. Cars, furniture, cellphones, computers...
Post a Comment