In spite of my lust for a laptop all my own, (which still has not materialized, I am sorry to say) I am really not much of a gadget person. I own an iPod nano, which I love. It was a Mother’s Day gift a couple of years ago, and I have probably used it every single day since I received it. It’s pretty old school now, of course, there’s no video or anything, but it suits me well. I can listen to podcasts on the way to work and to music using my speakers when I’m at work and it’s perfect. I can rock an excellent party playlist or two or three, and it holds nearly a thousand songs so it’s all very, very good. I also own a digital camera (another Mother’s Day gift, do my boys rock or what?) and a cute little photo printer. The camera/printer combo is close to 3 years old, and again, they serve me perfectly well.
I am fully aware that there are new! gadgets! on the market! now – the iPhone and iTouch probably the most recognizable. I am also fully aware that for a small fee I can probably upgrade my camera to one with more megapixels, better zoom, better quality all around. I just don’t want to. I am not that sort of girl, to go all fickle on my tech when the next big thing rolls into town. I’m not. At least I wasn’t. Up until a couple of weeks ago when I upgraded my six year old (!!) phone.
I initially went into the wireless place to talk about our wireless plan. We had a basic family plan sort of thing for making phone calls – well duh – that included fee-for-texting. I recently discovered that I love love love to text. To me, it’s the equivalent of passing notes in class (which I also loved and was quite skilled at). I like the ability to be on the bus and dash off a quick note to a friend, sharing an observation that no one else would understand. I like that my phone gives a quiet little “beep” alerting me to a new message, but no one else. I guess I just like the stealth aspect to texting. Mwahahahaa! Watch me pretend to work while actually texting my friends! Well, no not really. But it is pretty fun.
Anyway, so I chatted with the guy in the store about changing our plan, and no problem for a slightly higher monthly fee, it was unlimited texting time for the UIG! Awesome! Then, while he navigated the paperwork, I took a look at some of the phones on display. And that’s when it happened. He saw me pick one up and put it down and then pick up another, so of course, he wandered over to see if, you know, maybe I wanted a shiny, pretty new phone. Which I didn’t. I was just looking, right? But, I said to him, out of curiosity, if I were to think of replacing my phone, which one would you recommend? This one, he said, picking up this sleek beauty. Touch screen, camera, video camera, full slide out keyboard – for better texting! Huh, I said. Sooooo if, you know, hypothetically, I was interested in this sexy phone, how much, you know, would it cost me? A quick trip back to his computer told me $20 after the mail in rebate. $20? Huh. Well, wouldn’t I be silly NOT to own it?
So that’s how it happened. Traded up from my little clamshell basic number pad keyboard phone just like that. And let me tell you, I am so into this phone it’s really stupid. I love it. I don’t know that I’ve ever loved a piece of technology so much. Again I say, it’s stupid. And I probably will never use half the features it boasts, but whatever. I love it.
And the nice thing is the old phone will get some new use – we have given it to The Musician as an “emergency only” phone, and he is beyond stoked about it. Funny how that works. A basic phone when you’ve never had one – we might as well have given him the cutting edge of futuristic hovercrafts or something, he’s that excited.
And I think it’s a good lesson. You can only really be excited by something new if you haven’t been programmed to constantly expect something new. I’m excited by a phone with a keyboard. My son is excited by just a phone. If you’re always looking ahead to the next thing, the next upgrade or feature, I think you can’t really truly enjoy what you have in the moment. By the time I upgrade to a new iPod, for example, my old one will probably be unrecognizable as an iPod, so much will have changed. But isn’t that a good thing? Right now I can’t imagine what other features I could possibly need on an iPod, but once I do get a newer one, I’ll probably be so excited and wonder how I managed to live without these featurs for so long. And the same goes for my lovely new phone. Right now, it’s perfect and exactly what I need. Will I eventually need to replace it for something swankier, with more gadgetry? Probably.
I’ll let you know in five or six years.
The Urban Info Girl 