I'm writing this article the same
way I write everything I've ever written: on a computer on my desktop. This
hasn't changed how I've written every single thing I've ever written since I
was in high school: the screen is different, there are no longer saving things
to disks of any kind, there are new variations of word programs. But
essentially that hasn't changed.
This is true even of the columns
I write for this site. Everything is a hard copy before I put it on to the
virtual ether that is the internet.
This is also true in every aspect
of my technological life to an extent. I game but it is on a combination
Nintendo/Super NES and a PS2. I continue to stream shows but I watch them on my
TV and I still own both a DVD player, am connected to cable and I own, dare I say
it, a VCR. I don't listen to music or podcasts so I don't need anything on that
level. I only got an iPhone in 2022 and that is because the flip phone I had
was finally so old that Verizon was no longer going to cover it. I occasionally
use the iPhone for zoom calls (I'll get to why in a minute) but by and large I
only use it for text messages and phone calls. In other words I use my phone
like a phone.
For a long time I had an iPad one
that goes back to something like 2017. I mostly used it for the kinds of apps
that were available at the time and still do, though many of them are
increasingly becoming out of service. This wouldn't be a huge problem because
with the sole exception of Facebook I have zero presence on social media. And
all of my email is still in my very first email account at America Online.
Much of this is no doubt because
I'm somewhere between Gen X and Millennials and didn't even really have a email
account until I was in college. But I suspect much of it is due to my nature as
an indiduvial. I've always know that so much of electronics, including email,
video games, iPhone and social media is a convenience rather than a necessity.
This isn't something that Gen Z or any future generation would believe in but
that's because they don't remember a time without it and for them, it is a
necessity. Though if you think about it, it isn't.
Consider this: really consider
it. Do you need to post every single one of your thoughts on any social media
site, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok? Will
the world end if you don't make it clear what you think about K-pop demon
hunters, the manosphere, the situation in Pakistan, compound interest rates?
Yes, you have the right to express your opinion but do you need to
express it every thirty seconds? Before the youngest among you answer, keep in
mind how much you mock the stream of consciousness rants that POTUS sends every
night when he can't sleep. (I don't believe that will make a difference but
just assume.)
Similarly do you need to
watch the most recent TV show whenever it aired on your phone or your
wristwatch or anything Apple has provided for you? I'm not talking about
whether you like the programs or not: I personally love Slow Horses and Shrinking
and Nobody Wants This and Only murders in the Building and so
on. But remember you're talking to someone who streams them to his TV and who
has just as often gotten hard copies such as DVDs of Stranger Things or Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel just so that he actually has them. I've never watched a TV show
on anything other than a TV except for a period in the 2010s when I watched
some shows on my computer. I'll grant
you it is convenient to be able to do so but that is not the same thing
as a necessity. You could, hypothetically, watch all of these shows on a
TV. And if you didn't own one, you could buy one. You choose to watch these
shows on your electronic devices just like you choose to get the streaming
services in the first place. That makes them conveniences not necessities.
The same's basically true with so
much of the modern technological lifestyle: you don't need to get the
news on your phone, or random trivia on your phone, or really anything else
except to communicate on your phone. You
may think you can't live without it but that's not the same thing as food or
shelter or oxygen. Your lives would be difficult without your phones but
not impossible.
I know because I've been in a
situation like this last week when for various reasons I did things that causes
me to lose access to my VCR, DVD player and gaming systems for the better part
of a week. For people like you that would be the equivalent of going without
your cell phone for, let's be generous and say an hour. It wasn't fun to be
sure, but I pulled my Gameboy out of storage (yes I still own one of those)
watched some shows on streaming and survived. It wasn't a picnic – and truth be
told I don't know if I could have made it much longer if my repairman hadn't
shown up last Thursday – but I did survive. It wasn't the same thing as not
having electricity or being locked out of my apartment both of which I have had
to survive and were far more agonizing to me.
The truth of the matter is – and
this may be the most explosive thing I've said at this site – our society
doesn't need most of the technological advances we've gotten in the 21st
century. They're not revolutionary in the sense that things like the radio and
the automobile and the TV or even the computer itself was. They make our lives
easier but we don't truly need them. And in many cases I think many of us would
argue there's not even improvements. Even
before the arrival of Trump and Musk was there anything on Twitter that was so
groundbreaking and vital that our society was better because of it? I'll grant
many of the apps we've gotten have made several individual parts of our lives
easier and in some cases they are necessities but the vast majority of
them are so trivial its hard to argue they're really even convenient. And
considering that so many of them are just more advanced versions of the
technology we already have – and in many of those case the difference are so
inconsequential we can't even spot them - then I truly don't know what we've gained from
them.
I'm writing this in part out of
selfish reasons. My iPad, which I have owned for nearly eight years, still
basically does everything I need it do. The problem is that the majority of the
apps I used for it no longer work on this version. That's because they have
undergone so many upgrades that my iPad's software can no longer support it.
This is known as 'planned obsolescence'. It's also the big scam of Silicon
Valley.
At a purely basic level we don't
need a new phone or a new iPad or really a new anything that these devices are
once we get it. But as with all technology there's no profit in that. Which is
why I suspect there is an unwritten rule with the programmers to upgrade every
single one of your individual apps or levels every few months or so. Now be
honest: most of us really can't tell the difference between Word 10 and Word 11
if you stuck a taser to our ribs. But because there's some part of us that
can't bare to be inconvenienced for even a few minutes because of this we go on
to buy new versions of the iPhone every year or so. And because the phone is a
necessity for most of us – particularly now that the land line has gone the way
of the carrier pigeon – we don't even bother to think about it when we do.
At this juncture every single
thing I've gotten used to using my iPad for during the last few years – whether
it is zoom or email or even Discord – will no longer work on it. The most
recent version I should tell you was because of a security upgrade which they
didn't tell me about until I couldn't get on any more. Then I found out – by
typing it in a google search on my computer – that they'd added a
security upgrade this month that would no longer make it work on my iPad. Did
they bother to tell me? Of course not. Either they assumed everyone naturally
changes their iPad with the spring fashions or they don't feel a necessity to
tell those fossils who wouldn't know what was going on. They've done this to me
before so many times it's not even funny.
I'm going through the same thing
with my iPhone. At this point the battery on it has gotten to the point that as
a necessity I need to charge it every day or it will go completely dead. This
actually happened on Sunday when I left my phone unattended for four hours and
it had zero charge on it any more. Again logic dictates I need to get a new
phone but I don't really need one. It would just be more convenient.
Now the natural response – the
one that I'll get from anybody under 21 – is that I'm a fossil who won’t change
with the times. There's some truth to that I suppose. But that's where I get
back to convenience and necessity. It would be inconvenient for me to get a new
iPad because it would take several hours and probably even longer to reinstall
many of those services. And I don't use it often enough for it to be a
necessity. The phone is a different story I suppose but considering all of us
go some place with a charger I'm not even sure that's a larger story.
Considering that so much of the
problems society is facing today among younger generations is based on how much
time they spend looking at screens I can't help but think this is should be
part of the conversation. Considering that in the name of convenience a
generation has gotten to the point that they have no longer even learned the
real necessity of education and critical thinking – to the point that the term
'brain rot' is now becoming part of the vernacular – there has to be a
conversation of what has been lost. I'm not saying we need to go back to the
era of DVD players and going to the library for research (though I'm not saying
that might not help) but at the very least we should be talking about the
difference between a convenience and a necessity.
There was a phase a few years
back when we were told to get rid of things that don't 'spark joy'. That
referred to physical clutter not technological ones. (We did see on
Netflix so why would Marie Kondo give away that game.) I'm beginning to thing
terms of technological clutter. Put another way I don't have a lot of apps on
my phone or iPad and there's overlap between them. But when I do end up
replacing them, however reluctantly, I'm going to figure out to have as little
as possible and keep to that minimum. Only a handful are necessities and even
fewer are convenient.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to
go watch Season 3 of Ted Lasso. Finally got a copy on DVD.
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