Slashdot Mirror
When Does Technolust Become An Addiction?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a CNet article, an incredible one in three people aged 16 to 24 in the UK would not give up their mobile phone for a million pounds. 'The phone-centric survey, called Mobile Life, was carried out across the UK and questioned 1,256 people aged 16 to 64 on a variety of topics ... So young people really like having a mobile phone and we all love buying gadgets. But before you dismiss this research as stating the bleeding obvious, think about this -- if someone had told you even ten years ago that people would be taking out second mortgages to buy flat screen TVs, would you have believed it?' Is this just the result of deliberately skewed marketing dressed up as research, or is this another indication of western culture's obsession with communication and technology? How much is too much tech?"
We'll find out June 29.
Say it with me: it's only a phone...it's only a phone...
Currently bidding on sig
maybe they value communication with their friends and family more than money...
I've never had a cell phone, and never will. Where's my million pounds?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
if someone had told you even ten years ago that people would be taking out second mortgages to buy flat screen TVs, would you have believed it?
That sounds like a really bad deal (for the closing costs alone). Why wouldn't you just take out a personal line of credit from the bank?
(Obviously, the best solution is: don't buy it if you can't pay for it that month, but we're talking about the lesser of evils)
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...I had one in the first place. But what do I need one for, when I have my PC to use for communication? :p
If you didn't have anyone to call from the super/market and tell what you were buying at that moment with it?
As I read this article on my new loaded Macbook Pro which I bought because it was sooooo purty...
If some marketing person asks me what the capital of France is, I say something like "Moscow". If they ask me who the prime minister is, I say "Michael Jackson". If someone is stupid enough to ask if I'd give up my phone for a million pounds, what do you think I'm going to say? These surveys are worthless, and we all have a duty to make them more so.
"Too much tech" - I can understand each word individually, but putting them together that way just doesn't seem to make sense.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I expect the answers would have been different if the persons conducting the survey had been holding out a briefcase filled with the actual cash. As it is, what the respondents were really saying was: "No, I will not give up my cell phone if you offer me a million pounds because I'm not stupid and I expect that you're every bit as likely to pay up as that widow of the Nigerian general who keeps pestering me!"
Technology purchases now follow fashions. It's been the case in the corporate world since almost always but this trend made a comeback in recent years (probabaly last seen during the "HI-FI" era). It started with everything having to be digital... and silver. The current buzz word is HD and you need to have glossy stuff 'cause silver is out. People go crazy on trends. People will buy big SUV's even though they can barely afford to fill the tank.
It's deliberately skewed marketing. The complete wording of the survey question read: "Would you give up your mobile phone for a million pounds of dried armadillo jizz?"
Shouldn't this be from the "how-to-get-your-press-release-printed-widely-for- no-apparent-reason" dept?
Other stories under this heading mostly include "Dixons announces that will no longer be stocked in their group stores".
How many of the people mugged for this "survey" actually thought that the herbert with the clipboard was actually going to give them a million quid?
If you held out a briefcase stuffed with a real million pounds in notes and offered that, few people would hesitate before handing over their cellphone, lover, mother in law etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
1)give up mobile for £1m
2)buy new mobile
3)profit!
I wouldn't need the numbers from my old mobile as obviously
I'd be disowning my friends and family for hot coke bitches...
Acid House saves Souls
People who answer polls are notorious for giving different answers, based on how the question was phrased. In this case, I think most of the people who wouldn't give up their cell phones assumed that the "million pounds" was just rhetorical hyperbole. Now, if you actually walked up to somebody and offered to give them that much money on the spot, I'll bet 99% of them would agree to give up using cell phones. Indeed, that's probably the least of what you could get people to do!
Home decoration.
Most people think that every free inch of their home must be covered with jubilant decorations. Their couches must be the best they can possibly afford, same with their beds, light fixtures, silverware, cups, papertowels, etc.
They will pay double the price for 1% extra cleaning power on toilet paper.
Technology is just the new realm of home itemization. You want the best cell phone. The biggest SUV. The biggest latte. The biggest TV and fastest computer. You want a palmtop with 2 gigs of RAM. You want a lawnmower that can cut down thick saplings without stopping. You want a bathtub that can fit three people. You want a high-end widescreen plasma monitor to check your email on.
Nothing new here.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I think it's pretty easy to say "no" to a million pounds when you know there's no chance you'll actually get it. If they really had a million pounds right there and the paperwork was ready I bet more than a few of the people who said "no" would say "yes".
;)
That said, I wouldn't give mine up
A million pounds, that's about 2 million American dollars. With that kind of money you can have people handle the phone for you!
-- Will program for bandwidth
of another slashdot story that was roundly dismissed earlier today. I think this is exactly the sort of thing the author in that story was trying to get at. Mobile phones and big flat TVs are really super-duper cool, but not the earth-shattering events that we make them out to be. Take away a 16 year old's mobile phone, and he'll find some other way to do what he needs to get done. It is his perception of need and technological magic that makes it worth more than a million pounds in his mind.
I don't have a mobile phone, BTW, nor do I have a flat screen TV. So maybe I'm missing out on something. Then again, I also don't have a house and so couldn't get a second mortgage if I wanted said super-duper gadgets.
I can quit anytime.
No, really.
After I get a new Macbook. And we need a flat-panel TV for the den, and some kind of media server. And oh yeah, I want a GPS for the car.
But I'm not addicted. Really.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I'd probably pay a million quid to have it taken away!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Depending on how they formated the question they could get the population to go either way. Therefore, until
it is possible to see the data and possibly have the same work be repeated by a more unbiased organization.
I tend to doubt any statistical results being put forward by an organization that stands to benefit from one result.
Huh? [devShell.org]
I'd be willing to bet that a high percentage of those who wouldn't give up their phones for a million pounds: a) had contacts on their phones that they didn't have elsewhere b) didn't know how to back up their phone data c) could greatly benefit from open standards. ..ah, for the days of charging my phone via USB,
plus encrypted synchronization with my computer whenever the two see each other by any method including email,
all encrypted, all universal, all open.. ..a nice little utopia.. ..as for now, I'm pretty happy that my Nokia tablet will access the internet via bluetooth on my Motorola phone. :-)
I am not an atomic playboy.
to pay for their cell phone bills: then it is an addiction.
How we know is more important than what we know.
TechnoLust seems like a pretty stand-up guy, and I hear tell the chicks dig him, but I didn't think he was actually addictive. Huh. You think you know a guy...
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Just before Google's index is poisoned with this article's mention of 'technolust' (you know, in case anybody cares) I thought it might be nice to pull up at least one (odd) result which seems to be about new paperless writing options. This is related to freenode.net's #electronic's elite01's paperless typewriter as well as my own project notes on my website.
1,256 people aged 16 to 64 on a variety of topics ... So young people really like having a mobile phone...
When did the definition of "young" change?
This is a signature. Bow to me.
I worked at a cable company (our company was doing a trial of Internet over Cable-TV before cable modems), and people would have their phone turned off before their cable. As a side benefit, this made it difficult for the CSRs to reach them about paying their cable bills once they couldn't pay those either.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
For ~$1.5 million, I'd not only give up my cellphone (and agree to never own one ever again), I'd give up ALL phones.. no home phone, no work phone, no cellphone.
Reminds me of the survey (reported ) that over 70% of respondents would give someone their password in exchange for some chocolate.
All that survey tells us is that 30% were too dense to make up something on the spot in exchange for free confectionery.
-- Soruk
for a million pounds and mail the crap to Cingular. Cell phones are a nice convenience, but gen Y is the first generation to have the device so throughly embedded into their social structure. When we were kids it was what shoes (vans, cons) and blue jeans you were wearing.. today it's gadgets. If you could have a cell chip implant gen Y and esp gen Z will line up for them, they don't yet, and may never appreciate and understand the freedom associated with not carrying one.
I've tried to advocate the idea that you can actually turn off your phone when you want to be left alone. Then I get complaints from friends and family who expect me to be available all the time. It's nuts. I understand the point of availability in certain kinds of work, but for social life I would like people to loosen up a little.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Its easy to say "I wouldn't give up my phone for a million pounds". It has no meaning. Nobody is offering them a million pounds, and people utter hyperboles all the time. I say, "Put the money in a suitcase, and then ask." No way 1 in 3 people would turn it down if the offer was actually REAL.
...as a "mobile phone" or as a "personal computing device" for the purpose of this question?
Woah! That's like a thousand dollars.
Would not give up their phone for a million pounds? So, people were actually offered one million GBP on the condition they gave up their phone? The other two-in-three people that participated in this survey must have been very expensive indeed. Oh, they weren't actually offered money and this was a hypothetical question? Really? For what it's worth, I would give up my phone for a million quid. My friends would never be far away if they knew I was rich...
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Well, one sign that your technolust is an addiction is when you injure the tip of your dick in the CPU fan.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
huh?
Did anybody else read TechLocust?
On the other hand. Maybe none of the respondents were actually offered a million pounds, so answered in the negative knowing full well there wasn't a chance in hell they were going to get the money anyway. You know the saying "I'd give my right arm for a night with her" etc etc.?
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
Since the driving factor of advanced societies is the zero-sum competition for social status via consumption games, we get these otherwise irrational responses.
I have little use for most of the high-tech toys. While I will replace a PC every 6 years or so, there are very few things I replace before I wear them into the ground. A fellow security employee called me "techno-amish". And yes, I do have a cell phone. It costs me $100/year and I may make a call every few days to my wife in case of schedule changes or to see if she needs me to pick up anything at the store.
Assuming that a month's worth of mobile phone service begins at fifty pounds and that British teens begin service at age 16, the average person can in fact expect to pay one hundred thousand pounds over his or her lifetime for mobile phone service.
Really, if you're worth a million pounds, she'll find you.
Friends will understand that you don't have the access that they do
Believe it or not, we used to be able to get together and even find mates before cell phones and pagers. Even before answering machines.
Rather, I'm betting that this "survey" didn't have the cash in hand when they asked that question.
According to a CNet article, an incredible one in three people aged 16 to 24 in the UK would not give up their mobile phone for a million pounds
actually dangle out that million pounds and see what the reaction is. it's easy to say a lot of things to sound hardcore but when push comes to shove? i'm sure the numbers would be much much different.
I do realize that a lot of people use the internet for erm...interesting research; but one should not lust after their computer. It's just an image, and you feel good about it because of your hand. And, for goodness sake, do not try to interface with the floppy drive.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Addiction is not just some extra degree of "lust". It's a compulsion that one cannot resist. Not just that one dislikes to resist. And not just a compulsion to do something bad.
Alcohol addiction is the classic: alcoholism. It's not just that one "drinks too much". Or too often, or the wrong stuff. Those are ways to tell someone is an alcohol addict. The alcoholic does not have self control over their drinking. Perhaps they need a drink to destroy their limits, or perhaps there is no initial barrier. Even recovering alcoholics cannot take a single drink, because the effect of that drink on their self control leaves them with no resistance - or is so likely to that they cannot take the chance. But even those not taking any drinks are still alcoholics, because they lack self control over taking it. They are behaving like they have some self control, but it's really gained by a huge, constant effort plugged into social structures, including regular meetings, and lots of conscious training, like 12 step programs.
Techno addiction is rarer, but still happens. There are compulsive shoppers to whom technology, especially media devices, have a stronger appeal than their own best interest. You can tell when people are addicts because they miss rent or meals, but have every new game.
These are all consumption disorders. Americans have them in epidemic proportions. Partly because we consume alcohol, drugs, toys, clothing, food and everything else to feed a desire really created by something else. Usually "spiritual", but most often caused by a family problem, especially early in life. And, as a buddhist will tell you, feeding the desire just makes it stronger. The resulting attachment to the material forces us further from the spiritual, which increases the desire, more consumption - the Wheel of Living.
--
make install -not war
I think the brits just like having things to worry about. I've never seen ANY group of guys who spent so much time worried about whether they were cool enough or had something terrible wrong with them. The more I read about Britain the more I think most of the guys over there have this dialog running in their heads all day:
"Oh, god, I'm a wanker, aren't I? I am, aren't I? Jeremy just looked at me. What was that grin? It's a WANKER-ID grin! He knows I'm a wanker! He can TELL! Oh, god, is it obvious? Wait; do I smell? I bet I smell. I don't smell anything, but maybe that doesn't prove anything... OH, GOD, only a wanker would think that! Wait; here comes a bird, let's see what happens... She smirked. OH, GOD, I AM A WANKER! It's all over, mate... I'm going to the pub."
Seriously, how do they stand it? I'd pull a lemming in three days flat if that was MY internal dialog. Straight off the Mohawk River Bridge.
Hey, all you British guys. Listen. I'm a Yank. I'm fat, ugly, I never get laid and my clothes are all boring and unoriginal. My job sucks, my coworkers all think I'm an asshole, and I'm probably going to become the male version of the "cat lady" who grows old surrounded by hundreds of feral cats (since I'm a guy, it'll probably be ferrets or wolverines or something, but still -- same thing).
Do I look like I'm worried about it?
Do I look like I'm driving myself nuts all day over it?
HELL NO.
I'm PROUD of it. I'm NUTS! And I gleefully tell anyone who will listen all ABOUT it.
Just do that. You'll feel better in no time!
NO CARRIER
Some horsey friends of mine are spending this week in a campsite in a moderately remote park in the hills between Silicon Valley and the ocean. There's no cell phone coverage there. And it bugs them. Yesterday I went out to visit them, and we rode endurance Arabians up to the ridge line so one of them could get a connection and retrieve her voicemail.
They'd sighted what looked like a cell phone tower, and we headed for it. But it was a relay station for county emergency communications, with a microwave dish and VHF antennas but no cell site gear. Finally we got to an overlook at a high enough elevation that they could get a weak connection to a cell site miles away.
None of her voicemail messages really needed answering. Nice ride up the mountain, though.
I think there's as big difference. I'm of the "buy the best, buy it once" school. When I buy something like a knife or a pot for my kitchen or a shovel for my garden, I buy the best I can find. When I buy a computer or a cellphone, I get the cheapest I can find that does what I need it to do. The big difference that I see is that most electronics like cell phones and computers either are unusable due to new standard, or simply fall apart, in a relatively short time. Unless I'm going to make some serious money using it, I would never buy a high end PC, or a high end cell phone. But I will gladly pay $100+ for a shovel if I know that it's likely to last 20 years.
But that's just me. You're right. So many people are just caught up in the whole consumer thing that it's kinda' ridiculous.
I don't respond to AC's.
He wanted to evaluate how technolust affected people, so he told the interns at his hospital to give the people on the seventh floor (mildly psychotic, neurotic, etc) whatever gadgets or items they wanted, so they could simulate the first thing they would do when they were discharged.
A week later, he made his rounds. The first guy he visited was playing with a toy laptop. He asked him what he was doing. He said he intended to catch up with Slashdot when he got out, and that the laptop was letting him practice his typing.
The second guy was tinkering with a small palm pilot. When asked, he said that he was a CTO before he was committed, and he wanted to go back to that life. The palm pilot was going to help him get used to handling all the messages he would see all day.
The third patient was stark naked, rubbing handfuls of walnuts on his groin.
"What the fuck are you doing???" the psychiatrist yelled.
"You BASTARD! I was FUCKING NUTS when I got here, and I'll be FUCKING NUTS when I leave!"
The experiment was a failure.
NO CARRIER
I'm trying to think of a crime I can commit to get banned FOR LIFE from phones.
/captcha : contact
I hate my phone. I'm a mobile professional white collar consultant who prefers the outdoors and simple life.
I'd drown puppies or put kittens in a microwave if that's what it took. I'm required, by my job, to carry a phone 16 hours a day.
I'm leaving the field in 3 years to go full time into my passion. There will be no cell. Only email and I love that because it's passive or even middle voice.
How much of that million pounds would you actually keep after paying income tax? One in three have good financial sense!
I just love the "studies" that come out of this country. Their journalism is equally entertaining -- I mean informative. The obvious problem with this study is that no money was actually presented. If you, as some Random Surveyor, walked up to somebody and said hey, give me your x-hundred dollar phone and I'll give you A MILLION BUCKS, most people would just be suspicious of you running away with the phone. Now if you had the cash on hand, or gave them a voucher that allowed them to exchange the phone at a reputable bank, then who in the world would prefer to keep the phone?
I mean, duh?
For most people, this is relatively mild - by overusing one and only one solution, a person can lose touch with the reality that other solutions exist. This creates a psychologically-maintained monopoly which is not subject to market forces or anything else. A certain Redmond-based corporation is often connected with this issue, but it's really only one of many companies that have an unhealthy mindshare, and any company that makes use of advertising is - in some way - exploiting this particular human sickness.
Note, however, that the problem is one of psychology and NOT one of technology. The technology merely happens to be the instrument used in some cases. It gets more press because tech companies are rather more prominent than breakfast cereal manufacturers, but the problem is universal. Kellogs didn't change their marketing strategy out of kindness, and the UK egg board didn't pull plans to reuse 1950s adverts for reasons of cost. Tech is easy to blame, but in this type of case it is not the subject that is the issue at all.
In a few, very few, cases there is a much more serious problem. These people have an actual biochemical or neurological disorder that creates disproportionate and dysfunctional cravings. As before, these attach to something external for a whole host of reasons, but what they attach to is generally unimportant. If something is addictive, it worsens that disorder, but it is still the disorder that is the issue and not the subject. Tech is not addictive, so although it can be the target of such cravings, it is merely the innocent victim. If it wasn't tech, it would be something else. Those with such disorders are guaranteed to latch onto something.
So, am I saying that tech isn't a problem? Yes and no. It is NOT a problem in the way that is talked about in the article or the summary. It is a problem in that there is so little innovation and true invention that we get into solution monocultures. This is a danger, if something goes wrong (see: Day of the Triffids for details, or indeed any of the mass power or phone blackouts that have occurred over the years). I would much prefer people to be aware of multiple ways to get the same result, because that is far more resilient to the inevitable problems in life. It is also a problem in the special case where the throw-away mentality produces steadily inferior products (see: Hitchhiker's Guide, shoe event horizon).
In neither of these cases, though, is tech the real culprit. It merely enables society to make very bad decisions, but ultimately society itself is at fault for making the decisions, the tech didn't force them to do so.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I've never had a cell phone, and never will. Where's my million pounds?
:)
You've got a good job (or no job?).
If I had a million pounds I wouldn't need a cell phone. One catch - I get to rid myself of the Treo by smashing it on the concrete the next time it resets while I'm doing a web search.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
...one in three people aged 16 to 24 in the UK would not give up their mobile phone for a million pounds. Is it fair to say that the ability to communicate effectively with your friends may just be more important to some people than material wealth?at least 3 other operating systems and 20 other manufacturers have delivered EXACTLY the same functionality in their high end phones over the last 5 years
Cool, point me at one that has visual voicemail - I could really use that and Cingular has poor service here. Is it on a Verizon-supported phone?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think part of the reason is that advertising has become so pervasive, and so effective. Many people think that they need these things to be happy, and it's a view that is constantly reinforced on TV.
You mean the problem is people don't know how to think for themselves?
Perhaps part of the reason for this is that we have become (well, the middle class, anyway) much wealthier in the last 10 - 15 years... buying crap they don't need, with money they don't have
Wait, you lost me - are we gaining wealth or debt? Those are opposites.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How much silver could I buy with that?
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
I can understand when someone loves a mobile phone ... i loved it once.
However, when I started my private company (sort of) i started to hate them.
When you receive 50 calls a day regarding job issues and similiar, and 20 "personal" calls it's starting to be a problem. At least for me anyway.
Since everyone wants something, and you can choose, who will you hurt. Yourself or the other party. I end up hurting myself all the time, since I work all the time.
Mobile phone is not something we choose because we love it, it's necessary in this world, since everyone got them and you are forced to have it too.
It made life simplier.(?)
A million pounds? Fucking hell for that sort of money you can have my phone and I'll throw in a testicle too...
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
If you reply to a first post, the moderators are more likely to see it as they are lazy and don't bother scrolling down more than a page or two. The moderators are either too stupid to notice that the reply has NOTHING to do with the parent, or they don't care, which is just as bad. Such is the way of Slashdot.
If you have to wipe it off when your done, you just might have technolust.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here, let me make it a bit easier for you.
...
...
Do you believe that your real friends WOULD make exceptions for you not having a cell phone because you made a deal that got you a million pounds?
Do you believe that the love of your life WOULD make exceptions for you not having a cell phone because you made a deal that got you a million pounds?
Or is it that you believe that your real friends would not make the EXTRA EFFORT to include you because you don't have a cell phone?
Or is it that you believe that the love of your life would not make the EXTRA EFFORT to see you because you don't have a cell phone?
Is that clearer for you?
The article smacks of creating an idol out of a tool, and ignoring the whole point of a tool, use to create or enable something else. In this case, they value having constant access to their friends and family more than money. Good for them!
How about giving up the ability to ever have a car, or motorcycle, or any road-friendly vehicle for your entire life. Does a million pounds sound like a good deal? No? You think it would compromise your ability to enjoy life or succeed at your career?
Addict...
I don't know about any one else here but there isn't a tech gadget I own I wouldn't give up for a million British pounds (including my computer). Having an extra 2 million American dollars would open up so many opportunities for fun and leisure (not to mention the financial security it would provide) I don't think I would ever miss any single tech gadget.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Now, does that include Helios?
Of course, a million pounds is really heavy, and a mobile phone is really light, who wants to carry around 500 tons? And a million pounds of what?
I'd pay you to take my mobile phone away. Old-school nerds like their gadgets, but hate talking.
The cell phone would be OK if it could sustain a call for more than five minutes before the call is terminated.
The baggage the vendors hang on the cell phone are an effort to distract users from the fact that they don't work very well for what you bought them for. ("Oh, I'm in a dead zone - maybe I'll listen to an MP3 or take a picture! Lucky me that I have something to do instead of concluding the business that the dropped call was about!")
IMHO people addicted to cell phones are people who are so immature and insecure that they need to think they are so important that they need to be available to their adoring fans no matter where they are or what they are doing.
Cell phones: not just a toy, also a pacifier!
1M UK pounds = $2.35M AUD oh hell yeh I'd have taken the money and crammed my little piece of peace breaker in their hands so quick their head wouldn't have time to spin....
like the original articles 1st comment said I'd bet good money that if they made the offer standing there with a cheque or a briefcase of cash the response would have been that 100% would have given up their mobile phone
Mod parent up, please.
When you'd rather put your dick in a disk drive than in your wife.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Homer: Ohhhhh, 20 dollars! I wanted a peanut!
Homer's Brain: 20 dollars can buy many peanuts.
Homer: Explain how!
Homer's Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
Homer: Woohoo!
s/Peanut/Cell Phone/g
s/20 dollars/1 million/pounds/g
When you sell your wife so you can subscribe to more porn sites, you're addicted.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Well, the agreement was to give up the cellphone and never get one again. I might not do that for ~$1.5 million. There really is a large LARGE difference between having a personal phone number that reaches me (mostly) wherever I am and having a phone number that rings some phone at my house. I do realize that peole USED to get by without cell phones, but that is simply the exception rather than the rule now; it's like someone ~10 years ago (let alone today) not having a telephone. Sure some don't but it's like "no telephone? How the hell do I reach you?"; same with a cell phone now. There are fewer and fewer pay phones as time goes by, and more are being removed; if I went on a trip, which with that kind of cash would be tempting, I would not be able to reach friends and family, or call for a cab(/limousine..) if there is not one already at the airport (yes, some airports have no payphones whatsoever anymore; my dad finally had to get a cellphone on the family plan because for a business trip he was flying into an airport with no phones). If I spent through the money (really, if I got that kind of cash at once, it'd be easy to be "oh, I'm rich" and spend through it in the next 60 or so years 8-).. anyway, if I spent through the money, I'd be virtually unemployable; even low paying jobs, at least in my area, assume people are reachable by phone. I would not want to have to permanently sit around at home waiting for job offers to phone me. I know for a fact at least one person where I work lost their job for not having a cellphone; they went on vacation, I don't know if it was with notice or not, but if they gave notice it was lost. People at work called his listed (home) phone at least 1-2 times a week, but people at his house were like "I have no idea where he is or when he's coming back". After 3 or 4 weeks, we had to assume he had left town; when he finally came back it was like "sorry, we assumed you'd moved." With a cell phone, he would not have had to leave it on all the time or anything; checking voicemail and calling back once that entire month would have been enough for him to keep his job.
"Is this just the result of deliberately skewed marketing dressed up as research, or is this another indication of western culture's obsession with communication and technology?"
A more insightful question would have been; "How many would give up their illegal downloading"? Being addicted to technology is one thing. Being addicted to entertainment is quite another.
1. Accept one million pounds 2. Surrender cellphone 3. Hire flunky to talk on cellphone for you profit!
It becomes an addiction when you make up a creepy name for it. You know, like "Technolust".
When you actually RTFA?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I can not imagine anyone taking out a second mortgage to purchase electronics. I might be a bit naive, but I'm a college student (albeit I have a job in systems administration that pays the bills) and I can pretty easy afford my HDTV, etc.
Having to obtain a second mortgage for electronics is more than just technolust, it's insanity. What a sad state of affairs.
We'll find out June 29.
No, that's when we'll find out if people will give up a million pounds for a mobile phone.
I read the headline... then immediately see the poll:
How often do you reload your OS and software?
Monthly
Every 2 months
Every 6 months
Once a year
Once every 2 years
I'm still using Windows 3.1
Whenever CowboyNeal upgrades
Somehow, this all fits.
One in three people in the UK between the ages of 16 and 24 are total idiots.
WTF? They wouldn't give up their phone for a million pounds? Are they nuts?? With a million pounds, you could buy more than just one new phone. I tell you, some people.
Translation: 33% of young Britons are stupid. 1 million pounds (1,991,968.08 USD, 1,487,863.14 EUR) is a lot of money. Some of them will not earn that money working their whole lives. With that money I would buy a walkie-talkie and hire a guy to reply calls and text messages for me. A walkie-talkie is technically not a mobile phone. If that was forbidden I would just make my way with a Nokia wi-fi handheld. I could communicate via email and irc.
I'm tempted to mod this +1 Informative because of the hot coke bitches bit.
Everyone knows we can't have THAT on here! Our OS is our religion!
The iPhone will be responsible for my self-actualization. Just you wait and see.
I would give it up - in the mean time I would just get a tight little portable internet device and wait it out till mobile phones move on in the tech world like pagers did-
either that or pay someone a half a million pounds to kill the guy watching me to make sure I don't get a cell phone
When does calling something an addiction become an addiction?
... you blog about it for no pay from a machine that cost you what might have been the final nail in your down payment on a new house.
Pick me, pick me! Please? (Rent's due again.)
Hmm, now that's a scary thought -- people not willing to do something if offered lots of money. People living as they wish and not being willing to be bought off. I guess if it really mattered we'd have to use force again.
Seems to me tech addiction/love/desire/demand is not at all constrained to the West: it's a function of income, pricing and product availability, among other factors. Are you somehow forgetting the obvious huge explosion of tech driven economies of China and India? Perhaps the massive marvels of Dubai escaped you? Japanese supercomputing slipped your mind ? Do you really think all the brainpower creating these things goes home and doesn't indulge in the same level of personal tech lust that drives the average Jose in Denver? That's a bit ignorant and baiting, anonymous.
I don't think the problem is people buying lots of gadgets, the problem is the story never ends. Gadgets will always deprecate in value fairly quickly (dvd players worth 50 euros now have the same fucntionality that dvdplayers worth 500 euros had a few years ago) and one also needs to get a replacement every x years (computer/laptop/ipod). Also because of technological progress, a gadget can bacome obsolete fairly quickly (palm/newton) for those wanting the latest features.
While I myself love gadgets too and always have the newest computers/phone/ipod/laptop etc me & my fellow geeks have to accept the cold hard truth: it is money thrown down the drain.
How many voicemails would you have to receive a day before you had a requirement to be able to listen to them non-sequentially via Visual Voicemail?
Sure, it *looks* cool, but if you think about it, is it useful? Aren't you going to want to listen to voicemails in the order they come in?
give them a bag with 1 million dollar in it. right in front of their nose. And they will throw their phone to hell!
I don't have a TV and don't want one, nor a car, motorbike or high end computer, but I would not give up my cell phone or net connection for anything. I was past thirty when I got them, so I know what life is like without them: It is lonely and disconnected. Until I happened to feed the words "Helsinki underground music" into a search engine some years ago, I didn't know that I had a lively scene of peers in my home town. They sure as heck never showed up on television, radio or any news stand publication, being too far beyond the mainstream and too few to interest advertisers. But they have mailing lists, web sites, record labels and net connections to similar artists all over the world. That's what the net means to me.
And the cell phone means that I can take a walk in the city when I don't have work and not miss a job offer from my customers. God, how I hated sitting next to that landline phone, waiting for work!
So I'm not addicted to technology, but the people it brings me. You simply cannot compare a cell phone to a flat screen TV - the latter is a dead one way channel.
Rene Kita
Artist, noise musician, freelance translator
"... think about this -- if someone had told you even ten years ago that people would be taking out second mortgages to buy flat screen TVs, would you have believed it?"
Yes. I've read 'Fahrenheit 451'.
i dont understand this crap thats going on about the "addiction" etc about internet, games, technology and stuff.
Tell me, is ANYONE thinking that one should need to "let go" of clothes ? Air conditioners ? HOUSES ? GLASSES ?
in their time, all of these were technological inventions.
what im saying is, trying to label internet, games and whatnot as "addictions" are utterly stupid. And almost always purported by people, who occasionally happen to be "psychologists", who have no capability for the technology hence do not use it.
i dont give a jack about some people who are still living in early 1950s mindset calling anything addiction or not. they can go to hell.
Read radical news here
I would really have no problem to swap my mobile phone for a million pounds. Please sign me up!
Hear hear! Teenagers in Britain realize that a mobile phone considerably improves their social life. For some very odd reason, they would rather keep it than take a lump of cash.
30% of people would not give up running water for a million pounds! 17% would not give up electric lights!
Stupid "money is everything" attitude.. *grumble*
Please. If you stood there with a check for 1 million pounds (How much is that in real money? *smile* ) there's no F-ing way 99% of the populace of the WORLD would say no. I'd love to say 'sorry, I don't have a cell phone because I traded it for 1 million pounds.'
Remember - 419ers are STILL scamming peopl.e Still.
> one in three people aged 16 to 24 in the UK would not give up their mobile phone for a million pounds.
Okay, so I don't live in the UK and I'm over 24, but nonetheless... I'm pleased to say I don't have a cellular phone, and I don't think I'd be willing to start carrying one for a million pounds. Maybe if I only had to keep it for a very short time (a few weeks at most), but otherwise forget it.
It's bad enough I live in a house that has land-line phones in it.
If there's anything more annoying than a ringing phone, I'm sure I don't know what it is.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
One-third of 16 to 24 year olds in the UK are stupid.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You'd have to give up all your future mobile phones as well. If computers become really small and gain mobile phone functionality, you're screwed.
I'd happily give up my personal cell phone for ever for 100k. It is convenient but I could easily live without it. I had one of the first cell phones way back when and then went for a number of years without one by choice when they started to get trendy. I guess it is more of a generational thing, or the fact that I like privacy every now and then. I have no need to call someone every 30 seconds, or stand at the store making a call about which peas I should get... I just buy some damned peas.
Give me a true GPS, wifi, MP3/video, phone and a reasonable plan price, say $20-30/mo. and I'd care a lot more. Plan prices are out of hand and simply not worth it. How is it that my original Motorola Teletac Analog phone plan was $19.99/mo. and I got 750 daytime/unlimited nights and weekends... but for a crappy digital phone (300 day/unl. n/w) it is $42?
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
There is a severe flaw in the survey.
If I ask you to do without something in return for some recompense (some other item or some sum of money), your response is going to be conditioned by two main "motivating conditions" (for want of a better term).
As a certain Alan pointed out, in his reply to the article:
If you promised me such an exaggerated amount of money that it far outweighed anything I would reasonably expect to receive, then I am likely to distrust the offer, and refuse.
Offer me a visible ten dollars (i.e., wave the bill in front of me) for the cup of coffee I just made for myself, and I will probably accept.
Offer me over the telephone a million dollars in return for never using a mobile phone, and I'll not take the offer seriously. Even if I were willing to accept such a trade, I don't take your offer seriously and reject it out of hand.
Beef.
Since they weren't actually offering the million pounds, it doesn't mean anything. Put the offer on the table for real and see how many people accept, THEN you have a real survey.
(which is why the right answer the proposition in the old joke is "Is that an offer?" or perhaps "Show me the money!")
If you have actual hard cash in front of them, people's prices drop a lot.
They might say "I'd never do it for a million dollars" but faced with losing real money, the tune changes.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They just *said* they'd not give up the mobile. If someone *actually* gave them 1 million pounds they'd be using public phone boxes and hitting the parents landline like a shot.
Honestly, you don't believe what people say in these kinds of surveys do you? If you do, I've a lovely bridge I can sell you, splits in the middle and everything...
'Speak softly and carry a beagle'
I'll do it.
For (roughly) 2 million USD, I would give up the Cell Phone - FOR EVER!
--E--
Show me the money
Are you living in a cave? £1 million is $2 million, not $1.5 million.
It's been several years since the exchange rate was £1 = $1.50. You can thank George W. Bush and the rest of the clowns for allowing the dollar to lose a third of its value on their watch.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg