NOSTALGIA AND THE SMART PHONE MARKET – Guest Host by Boring Bug

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Jeyran Main

NOSTALGIA AND THE SMART PHONE MARKET

By Boring bug

Have you ever thought how nostalgia is played out in the telecom market? Presumably the smartphone market these days. New technologies play their disruptions by recreating familiar things i.e. design cues that evoke old objects inter alia software mimicking the look of the old things it has replaced. Primary examples being the settings icon that looks like a mechanical gear, notes app that looks like a yellow notepad and the mail icon as a postage stamp. Clicking a picture still, fakes the whir and click of a shutter from a Nikon/ Kodak camera, whereas in reality there is no sound making shutter present in the current devices.

One can argue that these types of equipment such as the camera were as recent as the year 2005, but that was an entirely different era for the mobile industry. Ever heard of the term “gone with the wind”? Exactly!

These days I-pods are collectibles, disc players and Walkman are already antiques. Although the old had a richness never rivaled by the digital world, there’s little of a reason to mourn the death of arid floppy discs. After all, nostalgia cycles don’t move around the world at the same pace. Imagine there are people like me who still own a classic Nokia unmindful of its death.

Technological nostalgia has a deeper meaning. People like me often refuse to accept that newer is automatically better. We cling to the stuff with possessiveness and give meaning to outdated objects. If we were sent back to the 1990’s would we be happy?

-by Boringbug

Boringbug can be reached on his blog- www.boringbug.wordpress.com

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