Hey! It Still Works!

Technology, the Environment, & Science---

[I'm obsolete because I'm not smart.]

These days nothing is durable, especially electronic devices.  Not only are they lacking in durability, but they become superannuated or obsolete in a year or sometimes less.  For no sooner than one product is out, a new model is already being touted for release.  And of course, I seem to be always a step behind because I almost always cannot afford the current technology.  Take my I-phone 4S for example.  When I decided that I was in a position to buy it I was all excited, but only to find out that there was a newer I-phone model available.  I was downcast.  Once again I was unable to keep up.  I consoled myself that the newer and of course more expensive model was only a few centimeters longer and merely marginal in upgrade.  Of course owners of the newer 5-whatever-letter will tell me differently.  But hey, mine does essentially the same thing that their's do, and I can do without the not-really-needed bells and whistles anyway.  

What is frustrating, though, is that I have an LG 3450L flip phone from several years ago that is still in good condition.  I discarded it in favor of a blackberry.  Now, I know better, and I wish I had stayed with it.  It did that which my current phone does - allows me to talk and text.  The only trouble is that I cannot find its power chord, and the company no longer makes them or else I would have gone back to using it in a heartbeat.  Plus it would probably look cooler now since it would be sort of retro.  We all probably have one or more of those gathering dust in somewhere in our houses or apartments - all because someone or some company persuaded or fooled us into thinking that we needed an upgrade.  And we keep getting fooled, for we keep upgrading and upgrading and upgrading.   And they keep getting richer and richer because like kids we must have our new toys.   And those discarded and replaced-by-marginally-newer devices, now useless because now unsupported, end up filling the garbage dumps of underdeveloped countries in Africa and elsewhere because such waste is too toxic to be dumped in the so-called developed countries.  Now that is another story.   But then again, who gives a "fecal-matter" or a flying "coitus" anyway.

[Photographic Art by Ric Couchman]