Technology & Moderation

Contrary to what one might think, I was not always an early adopter of technology. I can remember in high school (yes, I am that old) when pagers and brick cell phones were all the rage. I refused to get a pager because getting a message that someone wanted me to call him/her seemed silly. That same posture—avoiding particular material goods because everyone else was purchasing them—had been a consistent theme throughout my young life. You see, I am a contrarian. Tell me that Titanic is the best movie because of its box office success and you are sure to get me to avoid watching it. Suggest that I buy a certain pair of sunglasses because everyone else has them—well, I know what is no longer on my wish list. So, what changed for me? In a word, media did. Now I do not mean that I fell in love with media for its own sake, but rather the accessibility of certain media like digital music tracks and the ability to contact friends through communication media helped to change my mind. This transformation did not happen suddenly. Living in Southern California, I was one of the last people in my circle of friends to get a cell phone. However, once I did get a phone I quickly upgraded to one of the earliest Web phones. This was a terrible device, particularly as I could not read e-mail or do much of anything except reach a handful of websites selected by my carrier. Still, the idea of having a computer in my hand made the phone cool. The real transformation in my love of technology came when I bought a PDA. My purchase of this device was done to help me stay on top of my appointments for work, but once I saw how convenient it was I wanted to combine all of my favorite portable devices into one instrument. In my dream I would have something that combined my calendar, contact list, phone, music player, photos, and file storage in a device far smaller than a laptop. The first device that seemed to fit my needs was Google’s G1 phone.

Again, my contrary nature made me turn away from the iPhone. Well, that and its cost and requirement that I use AT&T. I was happy with this first Google phone for something like three years or more. Only recently did I upgrade to the new TMobile Gx2 phone, which is far better. All of this history is simply to defend my change from a contrarian of material culture to one who has learned to appreciate these goods when my desires and those qualities possessed by a particular device coincide. There are times when I miss the extreme postures of my youth, but then I think about listening to my favorite songs, checking e-mail, and sending text messages all while working out at the gym; sometimes, taking a moderate position can be the most pleasing.