I connect with a lot of technophiles through social media like twitter. I am not a technophile. I was reminded of this when I impulsively entered a contest to win a Flip Mino HD Camera. Digital cameras are an important tool for blogging but I have never actually purchased one for myself. I mooch off of my wife who has a five year old Kodak that was the cheapest adequate camera at that time. Its 1.3 mega pixels is actually considered inadequate by some people, including the people who wanted some photos to accompany an interview we did for a travel magazine.
I also mooch off of my daughters. Their camera was a bargain because it was dropped in the store. After about a year of reliability, it started to fail. I can fix it temporarily by pressing really hard on the lens casing. It has 3.2 mega pixels, which is just barely over the bar as far as being adequate. It records video. When my kids are using it on vacation, they take lots of video clips. Any technophile in my situation would conclude that they NEED to buy a new camera. I don’t need to buy a new camera.
My laptop is almost four years old. It desperately needs reformatting and more than one ISP tech has scoffed at it in recent months. Any technophile in my situation would conclude that they NEED to buy a new laptop. I don’t need to buy a new laptop. I do need to reinstall Windows.
I don’t update my mobile phone in order to keep up with the Joneses. I bought my first cell phone out of necessity on Malta and it was the very cheapest model available. It became unreliable after about three years and I bought the cheapest new phone available here. It costs less than $40 USD for a new Nokia, SIM card and first pre-pay charge. Catherine bought a slightly better cell phone when we arrived in Malta in 2005 and it is still working fine.
The general population of mobile phone users in the US upgrades every 18 months. If a technophile wants to stay on the bleeding edge of technology, they have to buy a new phone more frequently than that. I expect to keep using my phone for as long as it works. If it fails completely, I will use my old unreliable phone while I consider my options.
Buying the latest technology when you don’t need it is a very wasteful practice. It creates a lot of plastic waste, not to mention the even more dangerous substances like lead, mercury and cadmium. The electronics recycling stream ends in some pretty unpleasant places where poor people damage their health and their environment. My infrequent consumption of electronics is partly an innate stinginess, but I have also been considering the environment.
