9/26/10

To feed off of tlloyd’s post about the “Cult of the new” in our discussion last class, I too believe that we as consumers are victims in today’s world. When analyzing Habermas concept of constantly wanting more and new products, I immediately thought of my father. When the ipad first came out last year, it was a huge success. For those of you who don’t know, the ipad is a tablet computer designed and developed by Apple. It is particularly marketed as a platform for audio and visual media such as books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. After the first advertisement for the ipad came out, the product more than intrigued my father. In the commercials, the ipad looked fun, easy and much more practical for the average businessman. Since my dad is constantly checking emails and researching developments on the internet, to him the new item seemed like an absolute “need” or necessity. Although this apple creation seemed like a real solid deal, my dad took no time to look into the negatives of the product. While the ipad seems to be more convenient than a regular mac computer, it fails to mention its lack of a web cam, actual keyboard, limited memory space and its inability to multitask with other applications. From an outsider, it may seem like that the Apple co. may just not have the technology or capability to improve these flaws. However, we have seen this pattern before. Like many apple products before the ipad, Apple is known for selling different mac products and then coming out with a new and improved version only months later. It is not that Apple does not have the ability to improve their products, they just know that because of our societies need for “new and improved” items, they can make a bigger profit by selling a less efficient product first and then sell the improved one later even though they could have sold the more efficient version first.

My dad was definitely a prime victim in this situation. No matter how many times I told him that Apple would come out with a better version not too long after the first one, he was convinced that he needed the ipad now. In today’s society it always seems like someone or some company is telling us what were lacking. We are always in need for something bigger, better and faster; nothing is ever good enough. Especially with the excessive amount of media today, everywhere we turn our heads an advertisement is telling us that we want something. Because of this incredible desire for need, are lives seem to constantly revolve around profit instead of allowing us to take a step back and see what’s really important.

"On my honor I have neither given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this blog."