I'm a pepper. This weekend, I finally broke down and got an iPhone. "Broke down" is of course all wrong, since this is clearly an upgrade on every level of my being. Now I am whole. Not to be too sarcastic about it, but I've always been ambivalent about early adoptership of new gadgets, even ones that do revolutionize your daily life. My professional life aside (bloody hypocrite), my instinct is to pause indefinitely when it becomes de rigueur to own a thing and when not owning it consigns you to a sort of second-class citizenship, especially if...gasp...if you're not broke enough to be priced out. Especially when said gadget does present a new platform for social exchange. The fetishized commodity...blah blah. Well, it's true. Aren't there more interesting things to fetishize? And I'm not even one of those paranoid types who's weirded out by GPS knowing where I am at every moment. Maybe a little.The main thing is that the more you have, the more you have to lose. The iPhone's ability to consolidate the components of your life is astounding, and getting used to that does put you in a certain servitude to the new normal. I'm not a live-by-your-wits-in-the-woods type, but I try to maintain some sense that I can exist a little outside the cradle of our loving machines. Yes, I'm aware that I'm saying this on a blog that is fully a part of that network. And now I've nestled even deeper into my place on the grid, marveling at my new toy's ability to put so many of my world's levers into my tingling hands as to convince me that is really can be that small.
Which is a long wind-up for a tune that does just the opposite — pushing and flowing, expanding, dissolving, coyly luring you in and then escaping your grasp.
No comments:
Post a Comment