The ever changing technology that moves extremely fast makes me feel that I am a laggard. While many of my friends are already updating their lifestyle with cool gadgets, I am still comfortable using my 4-year-old Nokia Express music phone, watching TV via my decade-old bulky tube TV and reading physical books. It is not that I am a technology averse person, it is just that, these cool gadgets are scaring me off. I am not denying on how these gadgets help us human to simplify our hectic life and connect us to information just at the tip of our fingertips. But, the truth is I am afraid of change and adjustment. Adopting new technology means there is some kind of adjustments needed to be done such as you have to learn how this new technology works, the cost of the adoption be it initial or continuous cost and sometime it takes time to learn how to operate these tools properly.
Being a laggard, I normally adopt to the current trend when they are no more popular among the population. As for now, I am just observing how people use, noticing some problems they encounter, benefits they gain and wait for the cost to go down. And after some time, I will normally be willing to possess those cool gadgets. And talking about that, there are actually few things from these latest technology that I would like to possess. They are as follows:-
1) Smart phone
The current phone I am using now is used for the purpose of voice call, text messaging, alarm and reminder only. The reason why I would like to possess smart phone (not necessarily Iphone), is due to the touch screen feature (which looks cool), and other interesting features which I find very convenient such as video conferencing, GPS, locators, camera, email, internet and messaging. Other advantages of smart phone can be obtained here.
By having smart phone, I do not have to carry my compact camera for photo taking, I do not have to carry my netbook to connect to the internet when I am travelling and the best thing is I can always multi task by using only one tool, ie smart phone. The only obstacle is whether the user (read: me) would be able to utilize those functions well. My perception is, there is a lot of new things I have to learn to function a smart phone, and this perception alone kind of giving me the 'chills to the bone' feeling. I hope as time passes by, my nervousness towards operating this latest technology would subside and when the time comes, I will eventually own and operate a smart phone.
2) Touch screen e-readers
I enjoy reading very much. This touch screen e-reader amazes me. I already visualize how convenient it would be to have this portable library with me at all times. This tool can contain 350 e-books. Its' 6" size fit well into my handbag. Well, carrying an ebook means you can always spend your waiting time at the restaurants or clinics, reading. It sounds great to me. However, I am wondering whether looking at the screen so much would harm your eyesight. Should there be any different, in terms of eye health, if one read from physical book and from screen? And another thing to consider is I normally read to put myself to sleep and I am not sure whether reading an e-book via this e-reader is a good idea. I might lose grip on the ebook and if this happens, may be the best way is to only read from real books.
3) Smart TV
Smart TV is a television that has the ability to connect to the Internet, and by connecting to the internet you can have access to a collection of applications and web browsers such as You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter to name a few. It is very convenient since we can have larger screen. However, what really concerns me is how expose my under age children would be to the information in the internet, which can be harmful. I think I have to go through a thorough justification on the pros and cons before any decision on Smart TV is made.
The above three items are the most wanted latest gadgets that I want to possess (not now though). However, as I am typing this text, a few other gadgets with the latest technology are already on their way out to the market. So, no matter how much I try to keep myself up to date with the current technology, I would always be an IT laggard. I don't think this is a weakness. What is important is, as far as I know how to connect to people, how to connect to the Internet and how to reach for information, I think I can still survive in this temporary yet significant life of technology.
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