Tick Tick Tech Tech: Gadgetoholism

Sameer is a software engineer and works with a top IT Company. Like most of his friends, he is a gadget freak and believes that he cannot live without his gadgets. His latest collection of gadgets includes a 32-GB iPod Touch, a 3G Nokia phone, Xbox 360, and a Sony Vaio laptop. He surely owns a collection to envy of. Well, you name the gadget and he will know it about them for sure. He has an eye on the market for the latest gadgets and all his savings go into acquiring them.

[caption id="attachment_178" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gadgets and Sameer"][/caption]

And Internet, he just can’t live without it. He is very active socially, in a virtual sense, as he averages an impressive 6-8 Facebook status updates and tweets every hour. Phew!!! That’s what you call being connected, isn’t it?

On the surface, it may seem that Sameer has fun with gadgets and must be happy with his life and work. However, on second thoughts, his happiness is questionable. He may have brief highs (as in while smoking) when using his gadgets, but other aspects of his life have taken a thrashing due to his enduring love for gadgets. In simple terms, he is addicted to his gadgets. Such an addiction is termed as gadgetoholism (or I’ll prefer to name it as gadgetoholism).

As it happens with all forms of addictions, you get momentary highs (while using a substance or displaying a behavior) and then a lull, which is accompanied by an anxiety to get back to the source of pleasure. So, in case of gadgets, you may feel happy while you are playing around with your new  iPhone, but feel anxious when you have to stay offline due to work at office. Consequently, your focus is not on your work, but on when can you get rid of the work and get back to your gadget.

Addiction is accompanied by the presence of deviant behaviors, which in case of gadget and technology addiction include:

• Displaying anxious behavior  when:
  
  
  
  • You forget a gadget while going somewhere
  
  
  • You have Internet outages
  
  
  • Your gadget stops functioning
  
  
  • Your gadget seems outdated when compared to the latest market offerings
  
  
  • You have to stay disconnected due to urgent deadlines at work
  
  
  
  


• Lacking non-virtual :-) social interactions


• Staying indoors


• No exercising or outdoor activity


• Displaying irate behavior when disturbed in the middle of a game or during an intense virtual activity


• Using new devices briefly and then tossing them aside


• Buying the latest gizmos to be the first person on the block, office, class, or neighborhood to own them

Well, the list goes on and on and on…

The real danger with gadgetoholism lies in the fact that it is not an obvious addiction and its ill effects are not as popular as ill effects of smoking or alcoholism.

What you miss the most due to gadgetoholism is your keenness to observe and enjoy the little things like the sunset, meeting friends personally, or thinking while you travel. For example, in the present day-and-age, you may be working 60 hours a week and travel 12 hours to and from work. Now, if you own a media player, you are more likely to turn it on to enjoy music or some movie on-the-move. Such behavior may steal your time that you could have utilized to think over some decisions in life or pursue some hobby.

In addition, most gadgets are not sold at the price of groceries. Although marketers and advertisers may want you to believe that gadgets are easy-to-own with their EMI schemes.

At the initial stage of gadgetoholism, you may start to spend time walking around the stores that sell electronic goods and carefully examine every gadget in the store. The gadgets may include cell phones, laptops, net tops, or LCD TVs. Free-to-roam stores let you experience the latest gadgets without any restrictions. This manner of selling is new to the Indian market. Traditionally, Indian electronic purchases were made at small electronic stores operating on a small scale and low inventory. However, the advent of, experential, electronic retail chains like Croma, Next, and Vijay Sales have led to an increase in the sale of gadgets and gizmos.

When you put in all efforts to get an expensive device, you are demonstrating a behavior that is comparable to gambling. Such an obsessive wish to buy technical novelties may lead to family conflicts or financial problems. For example, your wife or mother may not see the sense in buying a new 42-inch LED TV when your 29-inch CRT TV is functioning fine. They would prefer to use the money to buy new clothes or go on a family holiday. However, you may be blinded by the latest gizmo and get it. Such behavior may not be uncommon.

One additional point that you should consider before buying an expensive gizmo is its value depreciation. For example, I purchased my home PC (it has a 2.2 GHz Pentium IV processor) for approximately 24k, in 2005. Now, when I went back to my dealer to check its resale value, he could offer me only 5k. Phew!!! That is approximately 20% depreciation per year. Owning a PC was a need for my education so I have a rationale for investing in it. However, let us consider purchasing a luxury-driven decision to purchase the latest 42-inch LED TV for approximately 1,00,000 Rs. If you have enough money to spare, then this decision may make sense. However, if you go beyond your financial ability to make this purchase and could have met your entertainment needs with a 15k slim 29-inch traditional TV set, then you are sowing the seeds of levying a check on your monthly spending. In addition, you may have a great opportunity cost (Opportunity Cost is the value of a good or service in terms of what had to be sacrificed in order to obtain that item.).

For example, if you purchase a 15k TV set, you save 85k that you would have spent on buying the new LED TV. You can invest this money in other low-risk financial instruments and be better off financially. However, if you buy the LED TV, its value in the next five years (assuming 20% depreciation per year) ends up being ZERO Rs. Now consider the 85k that you will save if you buy the traditional TV Set. Rupees 85k invested in a five-year term deposit, offering 8.5% p.a. return rate, will give you a surplus of approximately 36k. That is, you will have approximately 1,11,000 Rs at the end of the five-year investment term. Compare this value appreciation with the value depreciation of your fixed asset: LED TV. What makes you economically better off? Well, I leave the decision to you. :-)

Closing Points

The latest thing on Internet is virtual life, virtual farming, virtual gaming, or virtual dating. You name a thing, and you can have it virtually. However, all of them may be substitutes and aren’t substitutes the second best thing? So, why plant hundreds of trees in Farmville and not even a single tree in real life? Or, why not play a real game of Cricket (to also aid your fitness) as against playing a virtual one?

A virtual life can never replace real life. You are not Neo from Matrix to live two lives. To avoid the addiction, make it a point to keep away from your gadgets at times, intentionally.

As I end this blog, I recall some instances from a couple of movies. First is from the movie: The Demolition Man, starring: Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock. Anyone who has seen the movie will recall the scene in which the following dialogues were said:

Lenina Huxley: I was wondering if you would like to have sex?
John Spartan: [surprised] Here? With you? Now?
Lenina Huxley: [nervously, nodding] Mm-hmm.
John Spartan: Oh yeah. [They put on the head phones and start hearing &^%$*$^& sounds. Stallone, John Spartan, gets frustrated])

---

[after futuristic, contact-free "sex"]
John Spartan: Look, Huxley, why don't we just do it the old-fashioned way?
Lenina Huxley: [stands up, shocked] Eeewww, disgusting! You mean... *fluid transfer*?

The next instance is from Die Hard 4, starring Bruce Willis. In one of the scenes, Thomas, the hacker whom Bruce Willis (John McClane in the movie) saves, says the following quote:

Thomas Gabriel: [about McClane] You're a Timex watch in a digital age.

It’s your preference whether you want to be a Timex watch in a digital age or a combo-watch that has analog and digital dials. I prefer the latter to enjoy a bit of both. In addition, it will be a height of stupidity or insanity if the situation from the Demolition Man is replicated in the real world.