Dematerializing Our Digital Needs - A Cultural Perspective
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 02. 2.08
"Mission creep" in the design of portable electronic devices has ushered in an an era of resource consumption polarity. For personal-scale electronics; less is truly becoming more in so many ways.
For television, however, the opposite seems true. Starting in the 1950's, televisions have stayed on a trend line toward bigger and heavier. Perhaps the most egregious trend in this regard is for the construction of Mega-home theaters with real theater chairs, and an internal broadcasting system to flat screens in all the major rooms, supplanting the wall spaces that portrait paintings held in the colonial and Victorian eras. Television is the fattening buffalo in the room - too big to stand on his own any longer - that must be mounted on the wall.
For the visionary designer, there is hope that these polar opposite consumption cases can converge, to where average annual per capita material consumption attributable to electronic devices decreases greatly from where it is today. See our examples and discussion below the fold.
Wrist watches as antiques:
My last watch, likely a present from an older relative, sits in a drawer mostly unused, held for those rare trips to a wilderness area where there's no reliable cell phone coverage. My phone is my watch: never needs to be reset; always on the right time; handles the time zones automatically, even. (Just surprised that Rolex hasn't partnered with a major cell phone maker to share brand building.) Oops..they already have.
Attention Rolex shoppers: LG was demonstrating its concept mobile phones to a few select journalists in Asia, and according to Tech Digest, one of the handsets was"basically a phone with a Rolex watch face embedded in the casing. Rolex buffs would certainly approve—the phone had a luxurious leathery exterior, and looked reassuringly expensive."
Everywhere I go, I see people looking at their phone to check the time. Wrist watches dematerializing__check.
CDs, CD Players, and CD-Holders
Who carries a pile of CD's in the car any more? iPOD's and satellite radio vaporized them. If you buy the tunes on line or have music sent to your cell phone via The Music Genome Project (Pandora Radio), auto music-clutter just goes away. Hard spun music media de-materializing__check.
PDA's
Sales of standalone PDA's have fallen drastically of late. Operating systems for PDA functionality have been subsumed into the so-called "smart phones". PDAs disappearing from the display cases at office supply stores__check.
Travel Alarms
Cell phones and smart phones often have built in alarms. Young people as a group seem more aware of and use the function than do older persons. Travel alarms dematerializing__check.
PCs
We've previously noted the shift in PC sales from desktop to laptop, with laptop sales on a course of sure domination. Less mass in computing__check.
Now for the vaunted TV challenge. How to demassify this beast, which surely exists in numbers more than the herds of Bison that once ranged the US Great Plains, and which seems headed toward challenging them on a weight basis! Whispering in our ear is the OLED TV. More about this animal in a future post.
Image credit::Natural Resources Canada, Photo Contest, American Bison.
But TV's are usually not replaced for many years, while almost all the other things you listed are replaced almost yearly.
I'm not discounting the fact that large plasmas use a ridiculous amount of juice, but once you buy one, it generally stays in place for 10+ years.
As for why TV's have gotten bigger, its simple: it is supposed to be immersive. Humans, being visual creatures, want the widest field of vision. That's why movie theaters still exist in today's digital world.
But you totally are wrong in your version of what "bigger" means. As TVs have gotten larger screen sizes over the past 5 years, they have lost weight by an order of magnitude. 32" tube Sony XBR: 200+lbs!!! 42" Panasonic plasma: 60+lbs. XBR had a HUGE footprint. Pany plasma is 3" deep and the fact you can hang it on a wall gives it the smallest possible useful space footprint possible. What the heck were you talking about with this? Did I miss something?
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Go on a tour of one of those show homes in a mega-home development and see the plasmas on a wall of every major room. You may be right in that we have passed "peak TV" and are on the downslide in total weight dedicated to TVs per home. But my point was that the downweighting won't get serious until OLED TVs that are only a few cm thick become market dominating.
TV is the temazepam of the people; imagine creating a brainwashing device so good that people keep asking for bigger and bigger devices :o)
Remember it's not just the size of one's electronics that counts but their duration of use and ability to be repaired. If you could just replace a chip on a desktop PC to upgrade it, rather than throwing away an entire laptop with its built-in monitor, that would be a good thing. And while cellphones have lots of cool powers, if you think about the replacement rate, then suddenly that big old Princess phone that's lasted 40 years starts to look attractive.
Of course we all know that durability only matters if you don't just toss something away because you just want a new one and recyclable is only one step in recycled.
The main advantage of a watch is that it's easier to sneak a peek at the time without being rude to the person you're with by hauling out your cell/PDA/whatever and openly checking it. I do use the alarm on my cell in lieu of an alarm clock, and I'll use it to check the time when I'm alone, but in formal/business situations, or around your old Aunt Millie, it's more tactful to wear a watch, if you're going to be looking at the time at all. (I'm stealing this from Tim Gunn, who points out in his book on style. Before hearing the courtesy argument, I'd been thinking watches were quaint/soon-to-be-obsolete too--a few newspapers have run articles on the subject in recent years.)
My tv is 4"x7"8" @ about 4lbs. it's a projector !
I wear a watch because checking a watch is much more convenient than getting a phone out of a pocket or carrying case.
Also, I have my phone with me most of the time, but not *all* of the time. On the other hand, the only time I take off my watch is in the shower or if I am going swimming.
As far as laptops being much less upgradable, that is true, but there are few points to consider. Most people don't upgrade their PC any more than they upgrade there laptop, and even if you do upgrade your PC, it is often not as simple as changing the CPU. If you want a new CPU, you often need a new motherboard to support it, and the new MB often needs new RAM. Of course, you can usually increase your RAM or upgrade your video card without changing other things.
PS When is TreeHugger going to adopt OpenID instead of TypeKey?
Hopefully laptops will start to see more standardization and upgradeable as demand increases.
With any luck there will be a tv programs via computer shift....where we ditch the giant energy suckers and appreciate computers as the all-in-one machines that they are becoming....coupled with a crystal clear projecter and ta da no more massive waste of energy,
I find myself in basic agreement with the gist of the article. I have a watch which I only wear when I leave the house, but I also carry my mobile (as a necklace) everywhere I go. Over the past year, I find myself wearing my watch less and less and just simply checking the time on my phone. And I also use my phone as a PDA, so I haven't needed a PDA in years. And I also use my phone as a travel alarm; I've never carried a travel alarm before - before I used my watch as a travel alarm. And I only have a laptop - no clunky space-hogging desktop. As for dematerializing the TV - check. I don't have a TV. 95% of programs on TV cause intellectual cancer and watching them is addictive. I do watch the occasional movie though - on my laptop. Advanced technology does make it possible to get more function with less material.
...and, as was extensively discussed in the comments of the laptop post, just making things lighter is not necessarily good.
If you must use exotic materials which are difficult to mine and refine in order to get lightweight, well, it might be better to be heavy.
And regardless, ditto to repair and upgrading.
Not to defend the cell phone, which is part of the rubbish of our everyday environment. However, pulling a cell phone out my pocket doesn't seem any worse than pulling out a pocket watch. Now, if the cell phone was as cool as my great great grandady's watch It would seem just phone, I mean fine.
Buffo Yahoo is probably right.
Although I'm against the numbing of our population, I have to wonder if we'd have an even bigger population problem if not for our obsession with the Boob-tube.
Simple answer:
HD1080p DLP projection head paired with a LED lighting assembly. Creates a high end high brightness projector the size of a shoebox, maybe add a full IPTV capable PC into it as part of the deal (use a laptop board) and you're good to go.
There are lighting assemblies for automotive headlamps based on LEDs about to hit the mass market that could nicely power a 1000+ lumens projector. With a lamp life of 50.000 hrs plus.
Why is it not happening? Well if you have a 500 bucks projector where the lamp needs replacing every 2500hrs at a cost of 450-650 bucks a pop (no pun) you realize projectors are about generating lamp sales. Just like inkjet printers are not for printing but for selling ink.
Enough said.
Some paper products are dematerializing. I no longer write things on napkins or notepads; i simply make a note on my phone. Same thing with business cards-- my phone allows me to instantly send my contact info to another phone. I also think the paperless office will become a reality once copy-happy older generations retire.