Yesterday was the release of the new MacBook Pro by Apple. As an avid Apple user, I was all over the net trying to get as much info as possible. Not that I will actually buy this new laptop given that I am perfectly happy with the laptop I have, but it is a new product from Apple and that is a pretty big deal:
Then today I stopped on my home to pick up a quick burger. I bought a Kids Meal at Burger King (trying to detox on the Cheesy Tots). It came with a toy: An “iDog Firefighter,” a plastic dog whose face lights up when you press its nose:
I was more interested in the name of the toy than the toy itself. It seems that more and more things in popular culture are carrying the “iSomething” name. I started to realize that the lowercase “i” has come to represent some interesting relationships. So between my obsession yesterday with the new MacBooks and my new iDog today, it got me thinking about gadgets.
My fascination with Apple’s new line of laptops is mild compared to many. Yes, of course, I am also totally mesmerized by my iTouch that is barely a month old and I now wonder how I ever lived without it. But that’s the point—at one time, we did live without our gadgets. In fact, we functioned as society perfectly fine. But now, we can listen to music from more than 6 CDs at a time without ever having to get up and change the CD. That is, providing you even listen to CDs anymore.
It seems that technical gadgets are great symbols for success in popular culture. It doesn’t even pay to have an iTouch unless you have the fully loaded, pimped-out version—the same goes for the cell phone. My cell phone is pretty stripped down compared to some; it takes pics and I can text. That’s about it. And I hate texting because I am so slow at it. I am ashamed to say, my own mother texts faster than I do. And my amazement should tell you how often we relate our technology with age.
Any other semiotic relationships you might notice about our technical gadgets? I have named several here. Consider what the gadgets you own represent besides being…just a gadget.
I found your site on Google and read a few of your other entires. Nice Stuff. I’m looking forward to reading more from you.
my cell..cant live without it…i lost it 4 a week and felt lost disconnected and kinda depressed….im not evn joken lol.. oh yea and i feel naked without an ipod even tho i havent had 1 for ova a year
yeah Michele, its true the i in front of something has become the symbol of technical thing. You my dude!
i totally agree with the i something being apart of our pop culture and also, am very intrigued by their better marketing schemes than PC. Like that commercial…
u know the mac and PC commercial and Macs are so much better and all that….
BS
I will agree…I broke my cell phone and was without it for about 3 days and felt absolutely lost. I had no idea what my friends were up to and if it had not been for my twin brother I would of been doing nothing at night had he not gave me the scoop on what was going on those days.
The one bad thing about technology and all those gadgets is that people these days are totally losing touch with human interaction. Instead of talking in person we call, instead of calling we text or e-mail. Human communication is becoming so impersonal! People now are unable to say how they really feel to other people if it’s not through text messaging, e-mail, or the phone (which is probably the rarest of the three). Also, these gadgets are becoming ways for people to totally cop out- for example: “The text message break-up.” The biggest cop out ever!
the world was perfectly fine without these gadgets. why then do we really need them. has anyone thought of the possiblity that in having them we have lost something. our methods of comunication such as texting, have caused us to modify our speach to the point that edit out “unessential” info, such a greatings, and all forms of etiquitte. that translates into the rest of our lives. in the last few years i have witnissed the etiquitte of the world around me go down dramaticaly, as the technology, the gadgets that allow us to make our own little worlds, increase.
and i feel sortof stupid for not reading the previous comments befor wrtiting mine now.
Someone’s lack of owning gadgets can reflect their stupidity.
Although you raved about your Garmin, I still get lost using mine. I deviated from google maps directions much less than those which are loudly recommended / highlighted in neon pink on Garmin.
Technology is supposed to make life simpler and more enjoyable…but sometimes it just makes it more complicated.
Before I started school, I took a trip to Circuit City and got myself a GPS. I figured it was going to be a good investment that would pay itself off through the years, also the fact that I was going to school in the middle of nowhere made my decision a little easier. The first time I used the GPS it made my 4 hour trip to school seem shorter and more enjoyable, so much so that I didn’t stop at all, it was just something about it that made me want to stay in the car and desperately wait for that robotic female voice to tell me what turn to take, where the traffic jam was, how to get around it, and the most delightful part, the approximate time it would take me to get there. I liked this post because it talked about dependency on a technological object, and as I have come to admit my GPS pretty much is the boss of me when I’m on the road. Just like the GPS dictates the turns I take in my car, objects like a phone, ipod, and a computer could dictate the way you go about your day. Technology is suppose to make everyday life easier and more convenient for the public, but it has also developed a dependency that instead of making our lives better is causing us to rely less on our abilities and leave everything in the hands of a technology. One day we are going to find ourselves asking technology to wipe our behinds, feed our kids, and before you know it we will be completely dependent on technology. If you have seen the movie Wall-e you will have a better picture of what we could turn into if we don’t change the current path that we are currently on.
I agree with what you said about people feeling lost with out their cell phone or ipod. I find it a bit crazy but I have also found myself in the same situation. Without my phone I feel like I am lost in time because I use my phone to check the time, never felt disconnected. One thing that pisses me off about people today, they don’t know how to make a phone call anymore. All people do is text, its annoying. If you want to have a conversation, just call the person. Don’t get me wrong there are good times to use text but when you send 20 text with one sentence or one word it gets annoying. Another thing about texting, you see a lot today, are the commercials on t.v. telling you to text a number. So you can win a prize or get a free ring tone. The funny thing is that people really do text the number on the t.v. thinking they are going to win, when it’s just another fee on their cell phone bill. Something that I have found real funny is fighting over text messages because the one person can talk so much and then you see them; they won’t say a word to you. Another thing that technology is doing to all people is making them lazy. For example, the microwave, computers, cell phones and t.v. The microwave is good for quick snacks, but many people make all their meals in the microwave and most of them are bad for your health. Also no one knows how to cook anymore. People are less active because they are glued to the t.v. screen, video game or computer. Technology makes easier but what happens when we have a black out, people are really going to freak out. What will happen if you get lost in the middle of no where and your cell phone doesn’t work? Another thing about technology has done to people, is making more materialist. Little kids at the age of nine having cell phones. The new iPod is out, I need to have it even though I have one already. This new phone can play music, take pictures and it has a touch screen, I must have it. They made it smaller, but I already have the one that came out 6 months ago; still need to have it. People are crazy. Looking at this makes me want to slap some sense into people and make sure I don’t fall into this cycle, that they have fallen into. I don’t want to feel lost without my phone or computer. I will learn how to cook. I don’t need everything because I know they will come out with something in a few months.
This is true everyone functioned fine without the new technology before it came out. Before iPods or even CD players people had walkmans and listened to music on a cassette tapes. Not many people had cell phones but carried around beepers. Yea the technology now and days are crazy and we constantly say how would I live without my cell phone or what would I do if we didn’t have any of this. But the truth of the matter is we would have been fine we were living without it before it we were good but now that we have it people make a big deal about it.
I didn’t get a cell phone until the end of my junior in high school, I was seventeen. I was perfectly fine without one. And even now I just got a brand new iPod nano prior to coming to college so I can have something to listen to but don’t even use it because I need someone to download music in it for me. So it just has been sitting there in my dresser since the beginning of the school year and it didn’t faze me one bit. I was without my cell phone a couple of times and yea I’m not going to lie it was stressing. But after the second and third time after being disconnected and breaking my phone and had to wait to get a new one, I was fine without it. My laptop I just got it as a gift so that I can use it in college but I barely ever use it unless if I’m really really bored and of course have to use it to do my work but other than that my laptop just sits there. I went home for the Thanks Giving Break and took my laptop with me and didn’t even use it once. I’m using it a lot now because I am bored out of my mind in college. Yea technology is great and the new things that come out but as you see I just recently got all these accessories but was fine without it before and even fine having it now and not even using it.