Year of no new electronics...

Like most of my goals for the year of 2014, this one was kind of broken when I,

a) had to buy a new phone in March when my iPhone 5's screen went all hot and bothered with pixels misfiring and general glitchy strangeness. Jill says that doesn't count because I needed a phone. I did buy the exact phone I wanted though --a yellow iPhone 5C-- because I'm extravagant like that.

b) bought Michael's old 3DS. M says that doesn't count because it's not new.

Buuuut, something interesting has happened:

1) I'm really really happy with all of my current technology without any plans to upgrade.

I love my phone (though as SOON as I can leave Verizon for Virgin Mobile/a plan that's 50$ less each month, I'm doing it!) a lot. The battery life is spectacular on the 5C and it's so freaking cute with its canary yellowness. The camera in it is amazing and it does everything I'd ever want it to do.

I'm really enjoying the 3DS with Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Mario Kart 7. Totally worth the huge discount my husband gave me on a great gaming device.

I appreciate my iPad mini and don't see that there would be any reason to upgrade it anytime soon.

Even my computer is now approaching four years old and I'm considering buying more storage and memory for it, but I don't want to abandon it at all.

The previous statements are SERIOUS progress for me. I don't feel that I need ALL the new things! The last several years I've talked myself into buying each new iPhone, several iPads and other various devices.

2) I completely forgot about the huge Apple Event today announcing the new iPhone 6 until Michael mentioned it to me at 930 this evening. I completely FORGOT. Usually I am glued to cnet.com watching all the live coverage for Apple's events announcing new products and this year I FORGOT.

I'm officially considering my electronics addiction broken. There will be further temptations. When the new iPad mini comes out with a color-corrected screen (the current model has some issues with color accuracy...yes, I notice that shit) I'll want it. But I'll resist because I don't even need an iPad. Really, I don't. I have an ereader and I have a smartphone. Sometimes I go days without using my iPad. I prefer to read on my ereader and if my iPad isn't rightthere I use my phone instead.

I want to beef up my computer. I want 500GB of hard drive and 8GB of memory...maybe while I've got Honeycrisp on the operating table I'll replace her battery as well. However, I have no desire to get one of the new Macbook Pros because they don't even have a disc drive and the cheapest model is 1300$.

In other news, the iPod classic (the last remaining iPod with the iconic click wheel) was quietly taken off the Apple website today. Sad. That click wheel made it just over ten years and is still one of the big reasons I became obsessed with Apple's design. I'll use my iPod classic I got in 2011 until the day it dies...probably even then I'll scour ebay for a new one.

Anyway, I'm taking a moment. It's a big deal for me to realize my 2014 goal of not buying new electronics has actually had the effect I wanted it to have. I don't check cNET every day anymore. I'm not up to date on all the new devices. I still follow Apple's new products, but I actually truly don't feel like I NEED to own all of them.

Yay me.

A couple of weeks ago I came up with a plan...

but have yet to implement it. Looking over my idea journal I carry with me everywhere, I find that this is all too often how I (don't) do things.

Anyway, the plan is this: once a week, probably Sunday, I will observe "Analog Day". Analog day will be a day of less smartphones, tablets, and internet. Specifically, the way I will define analog is by living that 24-hour period as if it is 2001. In 2001 I had the internet, but only on computers. In 2001 I had a cell phone, but could only make calls and text? I think I had texting capabilities, though people weren't really doing it a lot yet. With my limited verbal skills, texts would still have to exist on Analog Day. However, I don't want to use the fact that I'm "allowed" to text as an excuse to be preoccupied with texting all day...sooooo generally this day will be a day that I go out and enjoy the world outside, leaving my phone at home.

In 2001 I often left my phone at home. In 2014 I'm worried I have it at my side too often. I check it for mundane bits of information too frequently.

Our digital surroundings can easily become a crutch when you use them instead of doing more creative things. Creativity is usually more analog than digital. Writing in a blog could have been done in 2001, for example, while checking Facebook could not. Reading a book in a waiting room could have been done in 2001, while playing Bejeweled on your phone could not...not the Nokia I had, anyway.

2014 is the year that I have read the least in my entire adult life, I think. It could be an incorrect assumption, but I fear this is mostly due to a shortened attention span caused by a click-fast culture of checking statuses of things (weather, texts, emails, facebook, etc). Too much of my time spent online is re-upping information that doesn't mean anything. Have I checked Instagram today? What about Tumblr? While some sites genuinely engage me (Tumblr, Forever Young Adult, Jezebel), most provide bland scrolling and mindless entertainment (Facebook, Instagram). Where are these distractions pulling my life? I think the answer is sideways or down or nowhere at all. I feel that books and blogs and radio stations and going outside take me much further into a future of attention, intelligence, and meaning.

However, I don't at all condemn our new shiny objects of distraction. I love the world at my fingertips, but I would like to learn that I don't have to access that world every time I use my fingertips. It took me awhile to learn that having a cell phone, even if I have it on me at all times, didn't mean I had to be accessible to everyone all the time. Now, only 4 years after purchasing my first smartphone, I've found it is my time to learn that although the world's information is almost always available to me, it doesn't mean I need to access  it all the time. 

This brings me to my mild disdain (ok, maybe it's more like a medium simmering disdain) for Facebook. On the one hand, I am completely all for everyone being in the same space online and being able to organize my entire social life from one location. On the hand that I'm more often holding, I recognize that posting statuses on Facebook has become a placeholder for real interactions with others. When I talk to friends and family, I would like to know how they're feeling about their lives. Often when I have "catch-up" conversations, they are punctuated by, "Didn't you see my Facebook status?" or even conversations continuing from online "conversations" that were simply a friend or family member posting a status. For example, someone in my immediate family is currently in the process of moving. It didn't occur to anyone in my family to tell me about this event, because it was on Facebook. I think the next step in socialization now that so much of it has migrated online, is simply to remember that not everyone sees everything you post on Facebook.

I'd like to clarify that I don't mean conversations you've had with me online can't migrate to in person. They absolutely can and SHOULD. I love conversation through any medium and across all platforms. What I mean is when a person assumes an online status update is like a telepathic transmission to all "Facebook friends". It isn't. Maybe I don't use Facebook the way regular people use Facebook...which makes sense because I don't socialize the way others socialize. Namely, I cannot withstand the stimulation of knowing what everyone is doing at all times. To keep up with a couple hundred friends on a website would take all my energy from me, so be kind and don't assume we all know what you're doing because you posted pictures of your son's wedding in Albuquerque. Chances are, I didn't see those pictures.

I realize this is all a new venue of etiquette we as a society don't yet know how to navigate. I dislike being interrupted with "Yeah, I saw that on Facebook" when I'm talking about what's going on with me as much as I dislike others answering "How are you?" with..."You didn't see my Facebook?" Much of what I mean when I ask someone how they are is how are you right NOW? How do you feel today? What are you excited about? How are you coping with your life at this moment in time in front of me right now? What are you into, man?

Odd for me of all people to be requesting a more traditional style of socialization. Me of the only-text-never-answer-phone-calls fame. Me of the "I prefer to socialize online" battle cry.

I think I just figured out what I dislike about it! Back in the '90s, online communication was one-on-one or chat rooms of a few people in real time or via direct communication like email. Now it's more indirect megaphone-style life updates. What I really want is to actually talk/type to people I like.

Anyway, Analog Day. I'm doing it...starting next Sunday.

top 5 bits of technology you already have.

As a "red-blooded Amerrrrican female" most of my problems, as one might expect, are first world problems. Ever since the tornado (I can call it by its actual name now! Progress?) my obsession with technology and the possession of the newest, brightest, shiniest electronic gadgetry has been ratcheted up to its most perverse and unhealthy level. For a time I claimed, as the daughter of a similarly afflicted (recently deceased) father, it was my penance to carry on his legacy of obsession. I will most definitely use that excuse to buy something again, but on the whole, I've GOT to get ahold of myself, man!

In the past three years I have owned: 4 iPods (a touch, 2 nanos, and a classic), 4 tablet-type devices (an iPad, a nexus 7, a nook color, and an iPad mini), 2 ereaders (nook touch and nook touch with glowlight), 3 iPhones (3GS, 4S, and 5), and miraculously, only one computer (MacBook Pro). Of these  14 devices, I still own 6. To my tiny credit, I typically only keep one item in each category and give away or sell the other items. My iPods are the only exception here, as I have kept my nano and my classic. I reason that I NEED the classic for its capacity to hold all of my media with 160GB of storage capacity. I keep the nano because I like to use it at my cleaning job, because it's small and light and I have a little belt-holster for it. Most of the time Apple products can fetch me at least 80% of what I'll pay for the next thing, but that's still no kind of excuse for being such a greedy bastard.

At this very moment I have a pedometer listed on ebay (fitbit ultra) because selling it means I get to get the new one (fitbit flex)! And the new one will sync to my phone via bluetooth!

Let me further outline the more pornographic details of this obsession. Part of the intense infatuation with these gizmos is the amount of wooing I do in conjunction with the desire for a new device. I watch YouTube reviews of the device I covet. I read the reviews on cnet over and over until I have sections of them memorized. I walk about my daily life pretending I have the new device, imagining how awesome it will be to have it. I make pro and con lists to justify my need. I stare at images online of the device at all angles. I go to Best Buy and Target to see if I can touch the device/see it in person. It's really sick.

This expensive addiction has to stop but I cannot kid myself here: it won't stop. But perhaps I can at least slow the boiling madness to a bit more of a simmering bubble.

This post is a letter to myself, intended to help me resist the siren call of new technology by describing why I love the top 5 bits of technology I already have (and the ones I'm most likely to want to replace with the next better iteration of that thing every time there is a next better iteration of that thing) and why they're perfectly good enough to last me for years to come.

Dear Future Stephanie,

These are the top 5 perfectly functional items of technology you will be tempted to, but don't need to, replace ANYTIME SOON:

1. iPod -- Your iPod classic holds 160GB of media. You won't have 160GB of music for a very long time (only at half that now) and this device will work for at least the next 5 years, so don't even think about replacing it unless you break it beyond repair or lose it. I love my classic so much. Her name is Strict Machine. She has an inscription on the back: "Wonderful electric, cover me in white noise." She is covered by a custom skin of my mixtapes (that image I use for everything). I've mutilated her both by accident (dropping on pavement) and on purpose (trying to further customize an earlier skin with an Xacto knife left small slices in both her screen and her steel back-plate). I don't use her much in day-to-day life, but she's indispensable at parties and on road trips and anytime I want my entire music collection with me when there's no internet connection. As for my Disco Stick (iPod nano), she's lovely for cleaning, but she's only 8GB and is essentially extraneous.

Summation: You are not allowed to get a new classic unless yours is lost, stolen, or broken beyond functionality. No exceptions. When Disco Stick bites the dust, suck it up and start using Strict Machine for the same purposes. Do not replace Disco Stick. Let her die in peace.

2. iPad mini -- His name is Frank Sinatra, for the Cake song, not the singer (though the song is named for the singer, so there's that) and he's a fine tablet. His inscription says "We know of an ancient radiation, a faintly glimmering radio station." You will want the new mini when it's released this fall. You will want it soooo bad because it will probably have a Retina Display and might even come in fun colors! Heart palpitations! But remember, Frank Sinatra hasn't caused you any turmoil and you really only use him on the road and in the mornings to play Yahtzee and watch YouTube videos. You've never thought the screen resolution was crappy, so you don't need the new one.

Summation: You are not allowed to get a new tablet device until the third or fourth generation, at least. Calm down. You don't have to have all the new things. Resist.

3. MacBook Pro -- Her name is Honeycrisp and she has served me well for almost three years now. She will live for another few years, I suspect. She's only 250GB, but when I get to capacity I can always relocate my music, photos, and videos to my 500GB hard drive, so that's not a good enough excuse to replace her.

Summation: You probably won't be tempted to buy a new computer until Honeycrisp dies, so this isn't much of a risk. Just remember that Macs last 5-10 years and they cost like a thousand bucks. Don't do it until Honeycrisp becomes ridiculously sluggish.

4. iPhone -- Her name is Daughter of Avalanche and she's the most current iPhone, for the next few months anyway. She will get iOS updates for the next couple of years and she's 32GB, which is PLENTY of space for a phone. Even when your upgrade is available, really ask yourself if you neeeed to drop a couple hundred dollars on the newest phone. Yeah, you don't. Let this one live for three years...it won't kill you.

Summation: You don't get to have a new phone until at LEAST your upgrade with Verizon arrives (October 2014 probably). Apple will make you want the 5S. You will be shaking resisting it, but you must. Do this for your well-BEING, Stephanie.

5. Nook -- This ereader is fine. It holds books and has a nightlight. It works in bright sunlight, has a long battery-life, and is light. Nothing is wrong with it. Nook is getting out of the ereader biz anyway, so there probably won't be a better version of this ereader.

Summation: For this device, you really just need to let yourself keep it and use it when you want. When it dies, you may buy another on ebay or just use your mini to read with from now on. Just don't get rid of it. You prefer it to tablet-reading. It's ok to have an ereader AND a tablet. You like this device, so keep it until its demise. It'll be fun to see how long it lives.

Seriously, all of these devices have the capacity to live for YEARS, so let them. You take care of your devices and you don't like wasting things. It will be so much more gratifying replacing things because the other things are no longer functioning. You won't have to feel guilty! Imagine NOT feeling guilty for buying an electronic device...how cool will that be? Please refer to this list after every Apple announcement.

Sincerely,
Past Stephanie

This is going to sound really pedestrian...

both in that I am talking about walking, but also in the "commonplace and dull" sense of the word, but really, let's take a moment.

It was only January 2007 that the first iPhone was announced. Think back to those dark ages before smartphones. I am still amazed at what I can do with one object.

Today I took a hike at Wildcat park. I had four things with me: car keys, neoprene bottle with 14oz of water, my headphones, and my phone. During this hour and a half hike I:

*recorded a video of ducks by a dam
*recorded a voice memo of nature sounds in the forest by Shoal Creek.
*took pictures of nature.
*made a phone call.
*used voice commands to "play Queens of the Stone Age on shuffle"
*texted my mom.
*took notes on ideas for zine articles both via voice dictation and typing.
*listened to internet radio (both soma.fm's "Underground '80s" station and Pandora station based on Covenant).

Other things I could have done include:

*checking Google maps if I got lost in the wilderness.
*looked up local flora and fauna on the internet and catalogued it all.
*read a book (I almost sat on a rock and read awhile).
*played Scrabble with my feet in the creek.
*posted a blog with my feet in the creek.

...you get the idea...

Was this walk a little TOO multi-tasky or is it dreamy to be able to seamlessly do whatever you want with one device? I am still in awe that my phone takes such great pictures (see below and above). I am seriously considering getting rid of my digital camera because I think I've used it once in the last year. Who needs a decent digital camera (not professional is what I mean by decent--I still see a use for digital SLRs and the like) when you've got a swell one in your phone?



I'm still amazed that I can be rocking out to the Dum Dum Girls, get a phone call, answer it with my headphones, and when I hang up, the music resumes. I STILL think about how awesome that is EVERY TIME. It's a phone. It's a camera. It's a music player. It's the internet. It's a handheld gaming device. It has my schedule in it. It has my grocery list.

As Nick from "New Girl" questioned in the last episode: Is it possible to be sexually attracted to an object? Yes, Nick, yes it is. Of course I don't mean that literally, but the reverence with which I worship my smartphone is pretty lofty. Remember life before this? It was not bad, just with the saturation turned way down.

All this is not to say that being constantly connected is always the answer. There's still a simple elegance to grabbing your iPod and walking out the door. Sometimes these hikes are taken with ONLY my entire music library. No phone. No camera. No internet...just sound. And that's still pretty freaking amazing too...to have your entire music library in your pocket. I know it's no surprise to anyone that I love technology, but damnit, I really really do...