Go, gadget, go

by James Benenson

With digital SLR cameras and touch screen, WAP infused, phones being launched by the hour, the iPad is just the latest offering in an ever-expanding range of lifestyle gadgetry, and there’s no end in sight.

But with the world at our fingertips, do we finally have everything we need, or is the endless know-how of today’s multi-gadget society just too clever for our own good?

Since the development of the internet for public use in the ‘80s, the corporate giants have pounced on our lust for all manner of electronic devices, forging a multi-billion-pound industry on the consumer’s quest for contraption contentment.

Old school technology

Think the hackneyed image of an overworked city boy complete with yuppy big hair and an oversized mobile telephone will undoubtedly spring to mind.

In 1985 American computer manufacturer Kaypro gave birth to the first commercially- available, albeit rather cumbersome laptop, beating Apple to the mark by four years, while the ‘90s gave us our first SMS text message and the digital camera as we know it today.

Fast-forward to 2010 and the chances are everyone from your 11-year-old sister to your 70-year-old grandmother has some gizmo or other that can do a lot more than the contraptions of previous decades, but in an age when our appliances have it all, has the gadget finally reached its peak?

As manufacturers pander to our lust for trinkets geared towards our every need, today’s appliances hit the consumer with literally thousands of options, catering for anything the day might throw at us.

Take the iPad, or its smaller predecessor, the trusty iPhone.

Both offer in excess of 140,000 applications, from the wild, whacky and outright useless (the Lightsaber app that transforms your phone into a Jedi weapon might just be a contender), to more considered staples that can keep your accounts in check, guide you through foreign lands or help you cook for that perfect dinner party.

However, according to mobile trend researchers Flurry, the average iPhone owner only uses 5 to 10 apps on a regular basis.

There’s no doubt that we’re a generation bound to technology.

Social networking

Social networking has reached an all time high with Facebook boasting over 350 million active users and 50 per cent of those users Rachel, 22 reportedly log on every day.

Last year a survey commissioned by technology company Morse found social networking to have cost the British economy more than £1.38 billion a year as workers increasingly turn to sites like Facebook in office hours for personal use.

A reliance on the new tools that enable us to constantly communicate with friends, family and colleagues has developed an unnatural sense of expectancy that sees us tune in and log on to a growing cross-section of sites and devices in anticipation of the next chat, message, blog or tweet.

And if we’re not communicating, we’re sharing and feeding an obsession; updating friends and followers with a constant stream of day-to-day thoughts, so that we’re only ever a few clicks away from fulfilment.

Lets keep it simple

Perhaps despite shunning all the everlasting options laid before us, be it Apple’s endless supply of apps or Sky’s hundreds of satellite channels, in favour of a select few, we wouldn’t be content without the option of thousands we might not ever use.

We’re using our smart phones to tap into just a handful of the hundreds of websites that allow us to find and follow millions of worldwide users.

And if we’re not on Twitter microblogging to the masses or picking-up applications destined for a cheap laugh, we’re craving the latest must-have gadgets, just for the sake of owning them, calling into question whether or not we really needed them.