Aya Haneda - Blog #1

Obsolete technology was the concept being discussed this week. Obsolete technology refers to computers and or technology; hardware that is no longer distributed or employed in present day. We then considered obsolete technology in our personal lifetime and reached several technologies such as the Tamagochi, Wii Fit, USB, telephone connected to the Internet, the list goes on. Personally without given the time to look back and consider how rapid obsolete technology is I would till this day have taken technology for granted.

It is peculiar to understand the sociology of the patterns and trends of technology. More and more models of technology are being introduced into our world and you think you 'upgrade' to other better technologies but they all basically have the same base of what they can accomplish but yet we have this huge urge to buy the newest product. Lifespans are decreasing because socially, there is an emphasis on obtaining the newest technology. It’s a race between the human kind. People wait for month’s maybe years for the newest Apple product to be released. I have not once not heard the term between my fellow acquaintances, "Oh, I'm waiting for the newest IPhone to come out in a few months so I'm not going to buy the IPhone right now." It is definitely not solely the reason that technology is not increasing or improving but the social aspect of technology is immensely changing. We have come to an era that makes sure that it is 'normal' for elementary school students to own an IPhone. It is 'normal' to see them navigate their way through an IPhone. I didn't even get my first phone until the 5th grade because I had absolutely no use for it!

With my international background and having to move around the world yearly, I wondered how much my family had spent on electronics that are now obsolete. Where did all of these products go throughout the time I moved from one country to another? Where did that bulky DELL desktop computer go? In class, we touched upon the e-waste in China, which I believe all my family's unneeded technology ended. The fact that they already had a term for this type of waste applauds me.

In a class survey, it was estimated that the students used around 4 hours of Internet per day while estimates stated that the average American uses the Internet around 3 hours per day. I believe that there is absolutely no way that we only use 4 hours of Internet per day. 4 hours out of a 24-hour day is nothing. We use the internet when searching up songs, using a GPS in your car, emailing our teachers or students at Penn State, technology is everywhere and it is all about gratification. We use technology for our convenience, to seek information, to feel socially present around our friends at all times even if we're not ftf. (Face-to-face contact) We forget how it is like to live in a world without technology.

A prime example for myself would be that I couldn’t go a day without my phone. I would feel unsafe without my phone, worrying that I would be left out of something important when there would be nothing I realistically had to worry but at the same time I would feel upset if, for hours I would not see a message from my phone from someone. Do you ever think your phone vibrates but it hasn’t? Well that just recognizes how influenced you are by technology that you believe something that isn’t even there! Technology is a drug in the idea that we gratify technology so much that once we have used them, they become part of our life and essentially we are never the same again. Once researching or finding an area with the use of a GPS, doing it the old way with a map is never easy as it once was. In the present, once your phone has little reception, you worry, your heart races, your palms and feet sweat. That is dependency.

 Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971