Planned Obsolesence

Certain things are designed to become outdated while others are unplanned. This occurs among inanimate objects as well as animate. Including people. It's true (sort of) that we get old too soon and too late smart. And outdated?

What bothers me is the enormous junk we accumulate and eventually throw away adding to our landfills, highways and byways. We litter on purpose and inadvertently. Both of which should be controlled more effectively. Remember back when we (our country) embarked on an anti-littering campaign and it worked – for awhile. However, when I read how much food we discard I was dismayed (or even shocked). Not all discards are obsolete.

Yet things do get old and need attention. Things do wear out or cease to function and cannot be fixed (or the cost is prohibitive). We live in an increasingly technical society where things are produced, promoted (kids reportedly see 40,000 ads on TV annually). Then there is the exposure to iPods (and presumably on iPads as well), Facebook and their equivalents.

Old geezer that I am, I still don't utilize all the potential features on our cell phone and I do not own an iPod much less an iPad but I do recognize their value as well as their misbehaviors (like texting while driving or checking email at 70 MPH). Whoever imagined cell phones all over the world or satellites screaming into our homes? When and which modern technology will become obsolete who knows?

My laptop is pushing four years old and works just fine. I think maybe the cooling fan needs attention which doesn't bode well and I know it needs more memory to combat these huge programs which do become obsolete. True, the line between planned obsolescence and deliberate may be rather fine.

But it would be nice if we could throttle-down intentional obsolescence whether an automobile or a computer, an animal or food, but worse when we force people into obsolescence. Not only seniors, but fifty-year olds and even younger. Even a child may be a wizard in managing a computer but chooses to read several years below level and socializes even below that.

It will take some effort to deal with obsolescence but in the end it would be worth it, wouldn't it?