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Where Have All the Gadgets Gone?
waderoush writes "How many electronic gadgets did you own in 2005? How many do you own today? The answer is almost certainly a lot fewer. Counter to the dominant trend in consumer technology since the 1920s — and despite predictions of a coming 'Internet of things' — there may actually be *less* electronic stuff in our homes and offices today than ever before. That's thanks largely to the rise of multipurpose wireless devices like smartphones and tablets, which are now powerful enough to replace many older, dedicated devices like point-and-shoot cameras, music players, digital voice recorders — even whole home entertainment systems. To prove the point, here are before-and-after photos from one San Francisco household (mine) where the herd of digital devices has been thinned from about three dozen, eight years ago, to just 15 today."
Uh? What's going on here?
Also note the pictures: It seems he changed, not the world in general.
In 2005 we see a microwave and stuff that seems to be a lot of mobile phones and remote controls. What is preventing him from getting lots of unused mobile phones today? The remotes seem to belong to the stuff below the TV, he got rid of his fancy stereo (with CD-player, amp, loudspeakers).
Yes, the world changed. Yes, you need fewer gadgets. No, personal experience is not evidence and I think those pictures show only a change in his personality: From a young "I need to have every crap" he went to understanding he does not need every crap. Apart from that, the reduction we see in the pictures is not impressive at all. And apart from that, "personal experience" is no evidence for global developments.
I don't even have a mobile (cell) phone. I think my collection of gadgets is about the same.
Anyway, the more important question is "what is the sacrifice you are making by embracing multi-purpose devices?" A DSLR will produce better photos than your iPhone (or whatever). A point-n-click camera will also. A dedicated scanner is likely to produce a better scan than a scanner tacked on to a printer. I could find examples relevant to the other examples as well but there is no point because they are easy to find. I, personally, would prefer a dedicated "gadget" that does one thing and does it well over a gadget that does many things but with less quality. YMMV.
Doomed to mediocrity too, given that a multi-function device is always a jack of all trades, master of none.
Part of the difficulty is that they're really a jack of all trades, master of many. I gave away my old point-and-shoot camera, that cost me a few hundred dollars a just few years ago, because the camera on the iPhone gave better results. Not only do the pictures look better, but it automatically tags the photo with positional data, which is something that I specifically want.
My iPhone is also a great at other things, and I don't think that it's limited to Apple. Modern cell phones do a lot of things incredibly well. Yes, you're forced to do business with a big corporation to have them, but really, what's the alternative that you would advocate? Building your own computers out of sticks and dirt?