I recently returned from a two-week trip to Melbourne, my home town. Shortly after I arrived in Fitzroy, a dear friend of mine embarked on a similar journey -- he went home to Canberra for Christmas.
For my two-week stay, I took with me some fresh clothes, socks and jocks, a tape recorder for conducting a couple of interviews while I was in town, and my laptop. My friend, let's call him "Fred", took with him his entire DVD collection, which numbers over 100 discs, a digital camera, the latest AU$1,600 PDA phone, complete with 802.11 wireless and Bluetooth, a Bluetooth headset, "several hundred metres" of cabling (??), a GPS receiver, a laptop, a graphics tablet, a midi controller, two CB radios (for use while canoeing, "They were actually quite good... it sounds very official every time you use a CB. You know, 'Metung, Metung, breaker breaker.") and an entire box of chargers to power it all.
Now, this may seem a slight overkill for a two week sojourn to our nation's capital, but it gets much worse.
"Fred" initially forgot to pack his GPS receiver, which until that day had very accurately been keeping track of the longitude and latitude of his bedroom, which not surprisingly still hasn't moved since he took up residence there. So what did he do? An urgent SMS to his flat-mate saw it boxed into an overnight parcel and delivered to his residence in Canberra. Undoubtedly so it could keep track of his parent's guest room. Maybe that one would move.
Unless I'm missing something here, "Fred" seems to have a serious problem. An addiction which could rival that of the most hardened gambler in both its seriousness and cost. He is completely addicted to gadgets.
He has to have the newest and the best of everything. The result is his accountant's fantasy -- the write-downs "Fred" gets to claim as a result of his compulsive gadget-buying frenzies on his tax return rivals the gross domestic product of South-East Asia. Hey -- at least it's tax deductible.
This is the guy who bought a DVD player when they were new. From memory, he paid close to a grand for a gigantic unit which doesn't do the job as well as something you can now pick up at Jim-Bob's AV Shop for AU$86. Then there was the phone with the colour screen. He rushed to buy the first colour-capable phone, even though deep-down he knew that dozens of cheaper and better models would hit the market as the technology matured. How much did he pay? Something like AU$1,400. After hocking that brick off on e-Bay a couple of weeks ago in a barter deal for two raisins and a packet of M&M's, Fred invested in one of the stupidest gadgets a die-hard tech consumer could ever waste their money on.
He bought the PDA phone. It's a great gadget if you ignore the fact that it's completely useless, especially when the person wielding it is a hermit who even works from home.
Now while nieces and nephews may love going to "uncle Fred's" to play with all these gadgets, they are frequently reminded by "Fred's" somewhat disapproving siblings that "uncle Fred" does not in fact own a house. Between his technology addiction and his other compulsion -- good wine and nice cheese -- he's managed to blow his ridiculously high wage, which, as mentioned earlier, he earns from home, in its entirety. For around ten years. In a row. Sickening, isn't it.
So how does the modern day consumer avoid the pitfalls of technology addiction? Well I bought my TV for AU$30 at a second hand store. It's massive, and even though the screen is curved, the picture is great. It was around AU$4,500 cheaper than Fred's flat-screen model. Sure, it doesn't have a remote, but that's sort of a plus -- it keeps me "active", and exercise is important in these modern times. Heart disease is a killer. I bought my first DVD player a couple of months ago for around AU$150.
Then again I don't earn nearly as much as Fred. Not that I'm jealous or anything. Really.
Really??