“Whoa, what’s that thing?” a friend asked me when I pulled out my phone in Leo’s a few days ago, “It’s like a brick. Why don’t you have an iPhone?” All I could do was defend my phone and show off some of its better features, like a snazzy built-in kick stand. Unfortunately, I looked around the table, and every other person owned an iPhone 4 or 4S, so nobody agreed with me. While I was sitting there, it suddenly dawned on me that, in many cases, not having an iPhone has become somewhat unusual.
The thing is, my phone was top-of-the-line when I bought it a year ago. The HTC Thunderbolt was supposed to be Verizon’s best phone yet. It rocked a crystal clear screen, lightning fast speeds, a thin design, and infinite power in the palm of your hand. I was sold. I had to have it. Then, a cracked screen, endless scratches, and a broken back plate later, my phone suddenly was not up to par. Its awful battery life forced me to install a larger battery in the back, nearly doubling its size. In just one year, my phone had gone from awesome to awful.
When the iPhone 5 came out this past month, I can’t deny that I was immediately tempted to go buy it. I wanted to be in the iPhone club. I wanted to have a phone that was considered “the best.” Looking back though, I would be making the same mistake I had made with my current phone.
Every time a new product comes out, we are conditioned to think of it as the best that has ever been made. Every product is the “thinnest,” “sleekest” product out there. Those who market these products aren’t wrong. The latest gadget always is the sleekest for at least a week after it comes out. It’s just the nature of the technology market to immediately surpass its latest invention or market it well enough to convince us that it has.
The issue isn’t with advertising or how much people enjoy technology the fact that people enjoy the technology they own, it’s that many of us here seem obsessed with having the newest and best of everything. In only the first weekend, the iPhone 5 sold over five million units. When everyone’s talking about how amazing some new piece of technology is, it becomes difficult to not get caught up in the excitement. The new iPhone is impressive, I agree, but inevitably I know that in a couple of months all of us will be obsessed with the next big phone on the market.
An interview recently surfaced on YouTube in which a woman waiting in line for the iPhone 5 was asked why she was waiting. Despite persistent questions, she knew nothing about the phone’s features or even how it worked. The video is hilarious, but poignant: we get a certain thrill from being first, from getting something before our friends. Then, once we have it, we take pride in how great it is.
It becomes an issue of where we place the emphasis in our lives. Before I rush off to go buy the newest gadget, I need to think about whether I actually need it. That is the reason I will likely never convince myself to camp out for a product. If it will be the same as everyone else’s in a month, then the exclusivity of being the first to have it only has temporary value.
As for the iPhone club that all my friends seem to be a part of, it may be a while before I join. While they hassle me for sending green texts instead of blue iMessages (a neon sign that I don’t use an iPhone), they will just have to wait a little while longer. Eventually, I probably will buy the phone simply because of overwhelming peer pressure, but it will not be because it is the next big thing, or because the most apt shape to describe my current device is “brick.”
At the end of the day, our technology is actually a smaller part of our lives than it may seem. While many of us feel that we could never live without our phones or our computers, the specific model we own is ultimately irrelevant to our quality of life.
Now, I take a certain pride in my brick of a phone. It may not be the best, but it is unique, and I know that it will still be dependable one year down the road, when all of us are eagerly anticipating the iPhone 6.
