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How Long Could You Live Without Your Gadgets?
DruCipher writes "CNet.co.uk is running a very funny article about Andrew Lim, the resident mobile phone reviewer, trying to live without all his favorite gadgets. The article sees Andrew try to survive without a mobile phone, a computer, an MP3 player and a TV. At the end of his technology detox he feels more relaxed without all his gadgets but cracks after a few days, 'Like all proper detoxes, though, my zen-like calm didn't last for long. Once I'd finished my gadget starvation, I was straight back to the tech binging. A remote control gun you say? Yes please!'"
...For all of these gadgets we carry around with us. I have several belt-clips already, might as well wear a "pistol-belt" with military-style pouches for all of these things.
Once an nerd, always a nerd. The return to high tech shows that once you get a taste of high tech and live it, you cannot stop. While the relaxation and peace were good for Andy, as it is for us all, high tech is our way of life, period. Though, just to gain some inner peace, I would recommend this plan to anyone who is stressed out. My college professor is reading this, and seems to like the idea as well.
in terms of productivity. Yes, a cell phone as a cell phone can be nice, but the millions of hard-to-use features on them don't cut it. Same with me goes for PDAs and other such electronic organizers.
This is not to say other people won't find them useful nor that there are a lack of gadgets that are truly useful (GPS navigation is indeed nice) but rather the lack of integration, seamless transparency and/or AI in these gadgets that currently only let the already organized and motivated stay organized. It's not as bad as some truly useless products of the 80s/early 90s I remember my dad having, using for a week, and then letting it sit around for me to discover.
I think google with gmail or Apple with the iPhone are headed finally in the right direction, after all these years. But I have greater hope that a color, high-res E-reader will reduce my bookshelf down to one tablet (next big gadget) than having a truly useful, automated PDA which really fits the bill of being a Personal Digital ASSISTANT rather than me being a slave to it.
Is the computer really a "gadget" anymore? Laptops, perhaps, and handhelds most certainly, but the desktop computer is a pretty integral part of my household - "gadget", to me, is something that's fun but more interesting than necessary. It's possible it's all in the eye of the beholder, but my desktop (and more importantly, internet access) is just about as important as any other utility in my house.
For myself, I have gone months at a time without a cellphone, TV, computer, or portable music player. I didn't miss them much. This wasn't in the distant past, either, this is several times over the last decade. The key to this was the simple fact that I was well away from the hustle and bustle of my usual life. I was not at my everyday tech job, nor at my heavily tech-invested college, nor even in a major city. For portions of this time I was at a large ranch in the southwest U.S., where the main means of communication was CB radio; in a foreign country that was not heavily modernized; and on a boat skirting oceanic coastline. I didn't miss the tech because there was no real need for it - it would have seemed quite out of place, actually.
I have in recent times, and in my usual techie world, tried to do without a lot of modern gadgetry. By and large, though, it is hard to simply set aside. I am a practicing engineer doing a lot of mechanical design work - I simply could not do my work without a computer. I call up datasheets and other reference information hourly from the Internet. I do not have a landline, and so rely on my cellphone. I type much faster than I write longhand, so I usually email my long-distance friends and relatives instead of sending letters.
I have made some concessions to toning down my digital life. I don't find cable television to be worth the exhorbitant rates they charge, and broadcast TV is filled with a lot of vacuous crap, so I watch about 2 hours of TV a week. My iPod just died; I am waiting to see how the iPhone pans out, or whether Apple will release a 6th-gen iPod this year. Very few people have my cell #, so I receive about 20 calls per week on it; rarely is anything urgent enough that a landline and answering machine couldn't have handled it.
So, I guess one could say that the context matters in how successfully you can ween yourself from technology. Some lifestyles and work-styles have been enabled by modern gadgetry, and simply couldn't exist without it. In other contexts, the gadgetry is superfluous, a sort of reverse anachronism, if you will.
I once spent a summer (ok, a month) in Yorkshire with the SO, a pile of books and a German Shepherd for company. We did a lots of long walks, and I never felt the need for any gadgets whatsoever (we did have a portable CD player, though, and I checked my email twice that month when I was in town).
You really don't need digg, Slashdot, or the usually IT industry inanity fed intravenously to you 24x7. Like Taleb said his book, Fooled by Randomness, most up-to-the-minute information is just noise.
Go somewhere random
indefinitely.
when i go on vacation the first 12 hours i have to adjust to not having news/info instantly available--but after that i'm fine and a good book (or stack of good books) can easilly take the place of internets for leisure.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
... if properly motivated.
:)
I have decommissioned my Palm Pilot and MP3 player. I don't answer half the calls I get on my cell phone. I watch less than 1 hour of TV a day, and am thinking of getting rid of it. I run Gentoo on my laptop, but I spend less than five minutes a week administering it, saving any work for major upgrades.
I got to this place by realizing that screwing with this crap is boring. I have better things to do, involving some worthwhile project that will give greater returns in the future. For example, I have continued to improve my motorcycling skills, and have made some long scenic trips, with more planned. And, my work has improved and become less stressful with greater focus.
So find something better to do, perhaps with more depth than a zoetrope or pigeon training
I no longer have a TV. I had one for awhile, but found that there are more interesting ways to spend time, like dating women for example. I have ADSL, which is not quite as fast as that 10 gig network I got used to at one point, but it still lets me work effectively from home, and keep up with party invitations. But when I'm up at the island I do completely without, for weeks at a time, until the boat comes to take me back to the mainland.
I have a cell phone, which is handy when I want it, for example when I'm alone on the island running a chainsaw or something, but it usually stays in its charging cradle where it won't intrude on my life. Before cell phones came along I did without that as well. We have a community radiophone down by the dock and in the old days it was either that, when it worked, or wait a day or two for a boat to come along.
I found that degree of isolation scary for the first few years, but also inexpressibly delicious, far more deeply rewarding than playing with some new techno toy. I already get plenty of technology at work, and I approach its use, I suppose, with a certain amount of professional reserve, knowing that nine out of every ten hot new technologies are going to be forgotten within five years anyway.
Want to invest attention in something worthwhile? How about spending time with your friends? Yes, there's more to friendship than showing off your toys.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
The problem is that sometimes, depending on personality, the things you don't own also own you. There's a whole lot of celibate Christians more obsessed with sex than anyone I've ever known who was actually getting some on a regular basis. Extremes in either indulgence or asceticism are usually a detriment to the person doing it. Better to just work on learning to enjoy the things in life without obsessing or over identifying with them in either direction.
I don't need any technology. And my stress levels stay low.
You can get a humble little MP3 player for $25 or less. You can get a cut rate laptop for $200 that can at least look at a couple web pages and post a blog, and swap tunes from your $25 MP3 player.
If you want a PDA, get one. I have zero use for them, but Your Gadget Enjoyment May Vary. (YGEMV).
The personal cost to being poor is being humble. Take an hour to realize you won't win a SINGLE "your gadget vs. mine" discussion. Then you can just relax and still share the *activities* related to gadget. You can bemoan your latest baseball team's woes
American society includes some social cues that can make it tricky to observe others with money decking themselves out in the best. Just enjoy watching them as "someone showing what can be done". I specialized in books because I was poor for many years. Total cost of an O. Henry/Maupassant/Saki discussion: $25 or less. Total entertainment hours: 25. (If you read each volume twice to compare some details. O. Henry is the most upbeat of the three. The other two might bite.)
Regards,
TaoPhoenix
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
While to a large extent I agree with you, there's not much in the world that can't be taken away. Family, friends, learned skills, health, appendages, even your beliefs and personality can be destroyed as easily as a hard blow to the head when walking across an icy sidewalk. The only thing I can think of which can't be removed is the repercussions of our own actions on the world, for better or worse.
but what happens when gadgets are the hub of your life? What's the point of starting new hobbies (woodworking?) if my most dear personal projects require gadgets and computers? Have I become a pseudo-slave of gadgets.
It sounds like you've become a slave of NOT having gadgets. Sheesh, the point is to own stuff and not become attached to it, not to just avoid having it in the first place. You can equally become attached to an obsession over not having anything to become attached to.
AccountKiller
dude, it's easy to be philosophical when you OWN A FUCKING PORSCHE
"You are not your fucking khakis."
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I remember a history about dutch chess player Jan Timman. He liked a lot going out, have a drink, meet girls --who doesn't!-- but once he had to face a very important tournament. So he decided to retire to train in a place without any distraction, far away from the nearest bar, just to study chess. Then the tournament started and Timman lost his first three games. So he went back to a more bustling place. Started going out again, drinking each night and meeting girls. He recovered his strenght and won the rest of his games.
So, each one has her own zen. If you can live without gadgets, go for it. If you need them, have them always at hand. In my case I think I couldn't live without portable music players or without a laptop, but sure I could live without a mobile phone. Call me strange guy!
linuxav
Depending on where he lives, central heating might not be a luxury. Up here in Canuckistan, we have 10 months of winter and 2 months of lousy skating condtions ...
Some of us are outdoorsy nerds who like to go for days with the bare minumum of stuff on purpose. Sure we may wear modern materials, boots, tent, etc but it is still just a shirt, boots, and tent in the end. I leave the toys at home and don't miss them.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning