Technology has changed the lives of billions of people throughout history and today the speed at which technology is moving makes keeping up near impossible. Just 10 years ago so many people didn’t have access to the Internet now with cheap smartphones proliferation for many mobile is the main way the access the Internet and all the products and services it provides.
Having been living in Asia, specifically in Thailand for the last year I’ve lost my tech obsession. I just don’t care about the newest gadget be it wearable, 4K television or the latest startup news. I guess being so divorced from the west has made me see that what’s important isn’t the newest technology its how quickly it filters down to the masses.
All these gadgets are more like nice to haves, a smartphone has become have to have which in turn opens the globe to many people around the world through cheap and affordable Internet access that is readily available across Southeast Asia at least in compared to North America where you get entrapped into contracts most of the time.
Are wearables going to change my life? I just tuned them out because they have no purpose for me at where I am now. As Apple launches its newest iPhone and Apple TV I just tune it out. I will probably never go back to a contract or buy a 600 dollar smartphone again.
It is a waste when I can look at some companies out here across Asia that offer good smartphones for just a fraction of the price. Doing payments through NFC are nice but are just viable in much of the developing world. Thailand is a cash economy and for the most part all these cool systems being developed are just ideas that don’t work in these countries.
So I will not be a slave to technology, while I use my smartphone often I don’t need to check it as often, I use my mp3 player and camera more than anything else and that is as far as I am going take it. I am an Internet whore that’s for sure but I think I’ve learned that a lot of it is just noise.
I will use technology to improve my life, to educate and entertain but I want to start focusing on people, relationships that connect us to the real world not the digital echo chamber which is so cluttered with noise that it has become a time sync from the reality that we live in every day.
This will not be easy but it is necessary to just connect more with people, to be open and to start dismantling the walls I’ve had a long time to put up. The Internet has been an escape route that I can’t rely on anymore to distract me from who I want to be and what is possible.
I wanted to be part of the tech space, I was tweeted too much and used that as a replacement for connections and friendships. I can and will not be sucked into that trap again. I used to game because I didn’t feel like I had value, it’s not that I suddenly have found my courage but I am beginning to see that I don’t need to rely on these crutches to feel whole.
It feels good to let go of the obsession, to use technology but not have to be defined by it. To stop using it as a replacement for everything I think I am not and instead focus on what is really important, growing as a person and being able to choose a goal and give it all I have for it.