Shiny Technological Gadgets

I can't pinpoint the exact reason, but I'm not the type of person who needs to have the latest technological gadget. I can speculate, of course. Maybe it was because my parents lived in such a way to use something until it was completely crapped out, and making something have multiple purposes (like using old yogurt containers to store nuts and screws). It could be that my family never really made a big deal about "keeping up in the fashion world" or "having the new shiny doohicky", so that thought process never got imprinted on me. The earliest gadget I remember being a household word around school was a Tamagotchi. There were a couple of handfuls of students that had it, but it was less of "I have this brand new thing that no one else does" and more of "heh, it pooped". The first big frenzy I remember hearing about on the news was the Tickle-Me-Elmo craze. I was out of the toy's target range, but I'm pretty that even as a kid, I was thinking "Why would people physically fight one another for this?"

When it comes to technology now, I'd probably be classified as "behind the times" in several respects. I purchased my Xbox 360 from a friend about a year ago and my game collection entirely consists of birthday/Christmas presents or games I picked up from secondhand stores or garage sales. My personal cell phone is a very basic Samsung flip phone and the only reason I got an upgrade last February was that my previous phone was having the case of buttonsarestartingtodieitis. The tower for my new personal computer was purchased off of Newegg and combined with a monitor I got on sale, the speakers I picked up partway through college, the keyboard I bought myself when I graduated college and the mouse from my first computer way back in high school.

The best part about it all is that I'm perfectly content with what I have. I don't plan to purchase a Wii U/PS4/Xbox 720 or put it on my Christmas list any time soon, I don't longingly look at my co-worker's iPad all day, and I'm not counting down until the newest graphics card comes out. When I do make a new purchase, I try to pick a reliable product knowing full well that I expect it to last me several years. So far, I feel like I made good decisions in that respect when it comes to my GPS, car, and even sillier stuff like my electric toothbrush.

This might seem like a change in tone, but bear with me. Our campus is switching everyone over to new Internet servers and the Blackberries my co-workers and I had wouldn't cut it anymore (some connectivity issue or something). So today, we each got a new Samsung Galaxy S3, which is apparently a pretty new product. I just pulled up some prices on another tab and saw that some phones are going into the upper-$600's. Wow. As soon as I had the phone in my hands, I could already make comparisons. The most prominent ones are that the screen is over twice as big as the Blackberry and it's a full touchscreen without any physical keyboard. I've been fairly skeptical of touchscreen devices that involve movement (so the office copier is okay. for now.) but as I played with it this afternoon/evening, I was starting to pick up the habits. Swish and flick and all that. In all seriousness, I can take a screenshot by sweeping my whole hand across the screen. I don't remember if there's an exact term (there probably is) but the touchscreen keyboard can let you make one fluid motion to spell out a word rather than tapping out every letter. Plus, with this plan, we have unlimited data, so I was trying out things like Facebook mobile and Pandora because why not, right?

So, this phone is pretty awesome. Part of my time fiddling with the phone today was the professional in me saying "okay, you do need to make sure you can access your calendar so you have your duty schedule on file", but part of me was the amazed kid needlessly zooming in and out of a random photo because I can. Even with all this, I feel like the change was more like a really awesome upgrade rather than a bug for me to keep updating the phone or price shop for the latest model. When I leave here in a couple of years, I'm probably going to get a smartphone, but I'd be happy to have my old Blackberry for my personal endeavors. (Although in terms of the Apple/Android/Blackberry/Windows Phone question, the fact that this new phone was doing a lot with my Google information put a notable plus in the Android camp.) I know that part of today was me having "new toy syndrome" when I just overindulge in something because it's new. See also: my first two days playing Skyrim and a couple of days ago when I got to play TF2 for the first time since college.

So yeah, technology is awesome, but I don't feel the need to ride the wave of new releases. Heck, before writing this, I was playing my very first home gaming console - the Nintendo 64. If people really do see me as a nerd, it's probably not a techie junkie...