"For this week's blogs, I'd like you to take a picture of your own personal stockpile of obsolete technology. Then incorporate the picture in a blog post where you reflect on your own consumption of technology, and your relationship to issues of ewaste. Think about what you've replaced recently and why, and what's impelled you to buy new things. You need to relate your discussion strongly to the Sterne reading, and as always it will be helpful if you find and link to other material online. Don't forget to include a Harvard reference list.
Just remember, for this task we're not looking for you to explicate your guilt, or to be moralistic about your own behaviour. Read Sterne again, and think about how he explains his own behaviour in relation to larger, systemic or structural issues. Then try to do the same!"
I have two words for you. Stylistic Obsolescence. It's the bane of my existence. And according to Jonathan Sterne the environment doesn't benefit from this concept either (Sterne 2007, pp 20). I am, like a very large portion of the population, the proud owner of a very impractical phone because it looks fabulous, and what was a highly overpriced Apple blackbook which I bought because... it looked fabulous. These things were the very latest and greatest back in their day, although they have been long superseded by better looking models which serve exactly the same purpose and look even sexier.
In an interview, on "Apple Matters" it was stated that "Dell people buy computers to get a job done. Apple users buy a computer to make a statement." In many instances, a person buys a certain kind of computer because it looks better than another kind, even if its functionality is lacking. People, as a general rule, do not care about what happens to their old things once they replace it. It is not something they have to deal with directly and therefore it doesn't matter to them. They are much more concerned about polar icecaps melting because of our carbon waste. In fact lot's of people arn't even worried about that. No one really stops to think about the media footprint, because that is seen as a job for the academics, the government and the scientists.
The media waste I have collected for this blogging task are essentially all the old things I have, and yet couldn't let go of because to me, they are not waste. They are retro, and right now, retro is cool. As valid as the idea of obsolescence is, we need to consider that each person will have a different outlook on media in terms of waste and obsolescence. To be honest, my old Minolta camera and my record player, are just as loved, used and enjoyed as they were when they were first released. They are just not as popular anymore. So maybe they arn't obsolete or media waste at all. Maybe they are just old.
Reference List:
Apple Matters, accessed March 14 2010 http://www.applematters.com/article/the_apple_matters_interview_seth_godin/
Sterne, J 2007, 'Out with the trash: on the future of new media', in CR Acland (ed.), Residual Media, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn, pp 16-31
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tell me something lovely :)