Re: I used to be excited about new tech, but I rarely am anymore

This is a response of sorts to Andreas of 82MHz's recent post about not feeling all that excited about new tech.

As a gen-zedder (or Gen Zee) at the humble age of 25, I am not especially enthused about new tech. I don't really see that any of the new tech has a great deal to offer. That said, I think that's a me-thing. I tend to like the aesthetic of more minimal and basic things - think, C, or Arch Linux, or even OpenBSD or the like (though I don't use that because it's too slow).

I think there are quite a lot of people in this generation who still do display some level of interest in new tech. For instance, I have a friend who uses the Galaxy Flip phones (I think they're called Galaxy Z, or something) and who greatly enjoys them. I can see why - it is cool tech to have a touchscreen that's able to fold! However, I almost don't see the point. Honestly I'm not as big a fan of the touch screen anyways, and personally would prefer a manual keyboard like I use to have on my old Orange mobile. Or what I'd really like is one of those slide-out keyboards on the side of the phone.

As for cameras, I find the most fun is to be had with my DSLR (Nikon D3300) which is from around 2010. Modern smartphone cameras are good - even the one on my cheap Oneplus Nord N10 - but they aren't anywhere near as good as a proper DSLR. I think if you're taking enough photos it's often more useful to just use a proper camera, though it is useful when you don't have the camera on you to be able to just snap good looking photos of what's around.

Even for my friend who likes all this tech, I think he is a little burnt out on it. I think next time he upgrades his phone he said he will get a standard phone or perhaps an iPhone (yegh). The tech is cool, but once you have it... it almost doesn't make a difference. It's more pleasure in the moment of buying. Whereas with older technology, it was enjoyed more throughout its lifetime, and genuinely valued. The main value of the flip phone for him I think is the fact that it's a good conversation starter.

I think the general relationship we have with technology now is more adversarial. My friends all use Instagram and the like, but (largely) think it's a good thing that I don't. It's seen as a bit of a vice, or a necessary evil.

And generally I don't think they can really sell much of value anymore. It's minor, incremental improvements with a steep price tag now; it used to be technological revolutions with a not-quite-as-steep price tag. Really it feels like squeezing the last dregs of juice out of a lemon at this point.

The AI Word

So, chatbots. I suppose that is the major innovation now people talk about. They're fine. I do think they're useful quite often, especially to speed up all the SQL I have to do at my job, and to do menial tasks that would take me hours but are faster if it does it. That's totally fine, but it's also frustrating a bit. Having to look back on what it's done, see it's cocked it up and get it to redo the work n times isn't great fun. Having it just generate the code instead of working through a solution yourself isn't perfect. At work the thing that makes it necessary is very strict deadlines, and no tolerance by others of things not being immediate, and now. In that way it's a very corporate tool - it gets the job done quickly, but with none of the nice side effects, and it's all very rushed and unpleasant.

My friends use it for generating funny images to do with group in-jokes etc. which is cool I guess.

And broadly I'm very sceptical of it. Similar to social media etc., it seems like it takes just as much as it gives, nowadays. This doesn't really seem to be the case with old tech - but then that's looking at it in hindsight, and it would be a different story at the time.

Old tech

I do like old tech. I quite like CDs - I'm not big on vinyl but remember CDs from my childhood (putting in the Now that's what I call music! into the CD player of my mum's old Nissan Micra ) and do like them. I don't have a CD player though and my CD collection is only one-strong...

But the old tech world wasn't great, of course. Blockbuster wasn't good. Music record labels mistreated their artists, etc. So again there's an element of nostalgia, or anemoia, there.