JOIN USMonetary inflation and educational inflation are things of past now. Electronic inflation is the new ‘in’ thing these days. No matter how tech savvy you may be, whatever you buy, gets old-fashioned in just over a month - maybe even less.
With technology changing everyday, the geeks find it hard to lay their hands off the latest gizmos, no matter whether they already have a device fulfilling the same needs at home.
“It is the demand of the time. My room is full of e- waste. You have to buy the latest stuff to be in tune with times. Take the cellphone, for example. I have bought three cell phones in two years. I gave one of them to my brother but two are still lying around.
They do not even fetch a good resale,” Shilpa Sharma, a hotel employee, tells Metrolife.
If you think that only youth are the ones wasting money in buying latest gadgets, you are so wrong. Even the elderly get trapped into buying the latest stuff even when it is not required. “I bought an expensive DVD player few years back. Back then, it was the best available. Since then the technology has changed so much and the current versions are so much smaller and better, that I ended up buying a new one last month! Now the old one is placed inside store room, as its useless,” explains Shashi Bhushan, a government employee.
A small pile of unwanted headphones or old speakers can be seen in almost every home, occupying a lot of space. Same is the case with old television sets and desktops, which may in a fine working condition but you have stopped using them because of the new ones. “I am into photography and the techniques and technology keeps changing everyday. To keep up with the trends, I bought a new DSLR even though I had an SLR already. I planned to sell the old camera but it is rendering almost nothing to me now, as compared to its original cost. So I am now keeping it as an backup camera,” says Mayank Agarwal, a budding photographer.
“Earlier I used to work with pen drives. But since my friend gifted me a hard drive, the tiny devices have lost their importance,” shares Vinshul Jain, a college student.
All this electronic waste that your home is producing is termed as E-waste. Old cassettes, wires, switches contribute a large amount of it. This has become a huge environmental concern as people are dumping large amounts of undesirable e-waste just to upgrade their social status and style. But how does one get past the conundrum of moving with the times while taking care of the past is the question needing to be answered.