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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...
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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.
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
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?
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
I'd grab the briefcase, throw my phone at them, and run before they could change their minds!
I hope they'd find that a sufficient answer.
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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
maybe they value communication with their friends and family more than money...
I initially expected just to agree with "this is deliberately skewed marketing dressed up as research," but that's actually an interesting point when you think about it. The survey asked people aged 16-24 "whether or not they would sacrifice being able to own or use a mobile phone ever again" according to TFA. If you are 16-24, then probably all of your friends communicate with each other by cell phone. By not having a phone, you'd miss out on a lot of social life. People are going to the movies? Oops, couldn't reach you, maybe next time. Meet a cute girl or boy? Give 'em your landline and hope they call when you're at home (and your parents don't answer and embarrass you, or your stoner roommate doesn't answer and forget to take a message). Hey, guys, what's everybody laughing about? What are you texting each other about? Etc.
Maybe the bigger surprise is that supposedly materialistic youngsters actually recognized the value of friendship over money.
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.
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make install -not war
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.
Maybe they realised it was an idiotic question, that no one would give them a penny to give up their phone, let alone a million pounds, so they gave whatever answer seemed more amusing.
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?
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
If you are unable to discard the phone of your own will, it may be cursed. Look for a potion of holy water or a scroll of remove curse. Prayer may also work if you are in good standing with your god. If that fails, you should be able to get someone to steal it from you.
I know someone who makes less than $30K a year yet saw fit to buy a $4K bed. We don't say people have an "expensive furniture addiction." I've met non-rich guys whose car rims cost $1.5K each. Why is this any different than with plasma screens or cellphones? We all buy what we want, and beyond food/shelter/clothing/medicine, almost all of it is luxury.
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.
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