20 Aug 2007, ST
Men are supposed to be gadget lovers, but it's tedious to keep up with frivolous new inventions
By Teo Cheng Wee, Our Columnist
ABOUT a month ago, I whipped out a new mobile phone that I had bought, to several rounds of applause from friends and colleagues.
I would have liked to say that they clapped in sheer excitement because I got the latest, most coveted model on the market, but sadly they put their hands together more in relief than anything else.
Relief because my last mobile phone looked like it had been dragged through landmines in Sarajevo and then trampled on in a Pamplona bull run.
A relic from the Stone Age - in other words, two years ago - there were scratch marks all around its shell, its light blue colour was peeling and the soft power button had been pressed so many times that a huge dent had been made, so deep that I could no longer turn on the phone without the help of a pointed object.
The phone had caused me no small amount of embarrassment, especially when it goes off and people give me the 'what, you still have a polyphonic ringtone' look (as opposed to the MP3 ones everyone has these days).
I sometimes try to shoot back an 'oh yeah, but Brad Pitt's phone in Ocean's 13 also had a polyphonic ringtone' stare, but that is usually too complicated for anyone to understand.
On a recent visit to an army camp for an assignment, I almost felt embarrassed to be the only person who didn't have to surrender his camera-less, MP3 player-less mobile phone to the guardhouse.
I tell everyone that I resisted buying a phone for the longest time because first, my old one was still working and second, none of the new phones out there caught my eye.
But deep down inside I knew the real reason was that I hated having to learn all this new technology that would inevitably accompany my latest phone.
When you are someone who changes his mobile phone once every two years or more, you are always left standing what appears to be light years behind everyone else. It's incredible how quickly new technology like Bluetooth or Blackberry can leave you blue and black from ignorance.
Everyone says men are supposed to be tech-savvy gadget lovers, but in this increasingly high-tech world, I'm probably one of the most low-tech guys around.
I can understand the appeal of having new toys - I was quite excited to finally be able to load funky wallpapers and a whole list of MP3 songs onto my new phone.
But when I got home, I realised the USB cable I needed to do this didn't come with the phone. Then I found out that what I thought was a memory card was actually a memory card adaptor.
This tech dino - as one of my friend so cheerfully calls me - didn't realise it at the mobile phone shop because none of these, you see, were essential in 2005.
With only two stock wallpapers and 10 jarring ringtones on my chunky new phone - and no time to go shopping for USB cables or memory cards - I actually preferred sticking to my old one.
So the new boy went into the drawer and there it stayed for four months (the aforementioned applause from my friends usually dies down sharply at this point when I relate the story).
It's times like this that I worry about turning into an old fuddy duddy when I'm only 28.
After all, it was just a decade ago that I embraced the Internet age with open arms. I still remember the excitement of getting my first PlayStation and, more recently, my iPod.
Have I really aged that fast in the working world?
But after thinking it through, I believe my diffidence and resistance is not directed towards the technology, but its usage.
Having information at your fingertips through the World Wide Web, sending money halfway around the globe with a click of a mouse, or having music on the go in a device the size of two matchboxes - now these are technological improvements worth having and learning about.
But having a camera in a phone so you can take pictures of any and every inconsequential object, like so many people do?
Allowing it to play music so you can irritate the hell out of other commuters on the MRT? Or joining Friendster so you can start competing to see who collects 10,000 friends first?
Some newfangled fads just seem so painfully frivolous.
And it irks me to have to keep up with all these tiresome inventions when they appear to do no more than add clutter to an already chaotic modern life.
Indeed, as luck would have it, barely one month after I started using my new phone, I had problems hearing people on the other line.
When I sent the phone for servicing, they told me that the cover was damaged, but couldn't explain why.
Was it something I did? Should I be more careful with it next time, I asked the technician.
His unsatisfactory answer: Don't know. Sometimes this just happens.
Well, I'm glad there was something reliable on standby that I could depend on for three days when I had to leave the new phone with the workshop.
That's right. My old scratched-up, battle-scarred, camera-less phone.
And I'm grateful that it was there for me - warts, polyphonic ringtones and all.
Men are supposed to be gadget lovers, but it's tedious to keep up with frivolous new inventions
By Teo Cheng Wee, Our Columnist
ABOUT a month ago, I whipped out a new mobile phone that I had bought, to several rounds of applause from friends and colleagues.
I would have liked to say that they clapped in sheer excitement because I got the latest, most coveted model on the market, but sadly they put their hands together more in relief than anything else.
Relief because my last mobile phone looked like it had been dragged through landmines in Sarajevo and then trampled on in a Pamplona bull run.
A relic from the Stone Age - in other words, two years ago - there were scratch marks all around its shell, its light blue colour was peeling and the soft power button had been pressed so many times that a huge dent had been made, so deep that I could no longer turn on the phone without the help of a pointed object.
The phone had caused me no small amount of embarrassment, especially when it goes off and people give me the 'what, you still have a polyphonic ringtone' look (as opposed to the MP3 ones everyone has these days).
I sometimes try to shoot back an 'oh yeah, but Brad Pitt's phone in Ocean's 13 also had a polyphonic ringtone' stare, but that is usually too complicated for anyone to understand.
On a recent visit to an army camp for an assignment, I almost felt embarrassed to be the only person who didn't have to surrender his camera-less, MP3 player-less mobile phone to the guardhouse.
I tell everyone that I resisted buying a phone for the longest time because first, my old one was still working and second, none of the new phones out there caught my eye.
But deep down inside I knew the real reason was that I hated having to learn all this new technology that would inevitably accompany my latest phone.
When you are someone who changes his mobile phone once every two years or more, you are always left standing what appears to be light years behind everyone else. It's incredible how quickly new technology like Bluetooth or Blackberry can leave you blue and black from ignorance.
Everyone says men are supposed to be tech-savvy gadget lovers, but in this increasingly high-tech world, I'm probably one of the most low-tech guys around.
I can understand the appeal of having new toys - I was quite excited to finally be able to load funky wallpapers and a whole list of MP3 songs onto my new phone.
But when I got home, I realised the USB cable I needed to do this didn't come with the phone. Then I found out that what I thought was a memory card was actually a memory card adaptor.
This tech dino - as one of my friend so cheerfully calls me - didn't realise it at the mobile phone shop because none of these, you see, were essential in 2005.
With only two stock wallpapers and 10 jarring ringtones on my chunky new phone - and no time to go shopping for USB cables or memory cards - I actually preferred sticking to my old one.
So the new boy went into the drawer and there it stayed for four months (the aforementioned applause from my friends usually dies down sharply at this point when I relate the story).
It's times like this that I worry about turning into an old fuddy duddy when I'm only 28.
After all, it was just a decade ago that I embraced the Internet age with open arms. I still remember the excitement of getting my first PlayStation and, more recently, my iPod.
Have I really aged that fast in the working world?
But after thinking it through, I believe my diffidence and resistance is not directed towards the technology, but its usage.
Having information at your fingertips through the World Wide Web, sending money halfway around the globe with a click of a mouse, or having music on the go in a device the size of two matchboxes - now these are technological improvements worth having and learning about.
But having a camera in a phone so you can take pictures of any and every inconsequential object, like so many people do?
Allowing it to play music so you can irritate the hell out of other commuters on the MRT? Or joining Friendster so you can start competing to see who collects 10,000 friends first?
Some newfangled fads just seem so painfully frivolous.
And it irks me to have to keep up with all these tiresome inventions when they appear to do no more than add clutter to an already chaotic modern life.
Indeed, as luck would have it, barely one month after I started using my new phone, I had problems hearing people on the other line.
When I sent the phone for servicing, they told me that the cover was damaged, but couldn't explain why.
Was it something I did? Should I be more careful with it next time, I asked the technician.
His unsatisfactory answer: Don't know. Sometimes this just happens.
Well, I'm glad there was something reliable on standby that I could depend on for three days when I had to leave the new phone with the workshop.
That's right. My old scratched-up, battle-scarred, camera-less phone.
And I'm grateful that it was there for me - warts, polyphonic ringtones and all.
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