All too often I hear people describe a particular technology as "once you try this you can't go back!" or "I can't live without it." Sometimes they say it as though I too will get hooked had I decide to "take the plunge". I can't disagree more.
I believe that people can and should adapt to the situation, whether it is taking a turn for the better or worse. I remember one time in Melbourne a fire broke out in a natural gas facility causing it to shut down and leaving the region without gas for several weeks. For most homes this meant their cooking stove and water heater ceased working unless they operated with electricity. Did anyone starve to death because of this incident? Apparently not. Restaurants simply had gas delivered in large metal cans. We were even able to have hot water baths by boiling water with our electric kettles. Sure it was inconvenient as hell, but we survived.
Now most conversations don't involve such serious disasters as losing an entire utility service. They are usually about broadband vs. dial-up internet, flat panel high-def TV sets vs. standard ones or storage capacity of mp3 players. The second of these was brought up in a recent conversation. I didn't fight hard for my point (people who wants to convince you so badly usually don't like being proved wrong), but my take on this has always been the content coming before the picture quality. It's good to have better pictures, but even without that luxury the point of the program/movie still gets through. I doubt the high-def version makes us more emotionally affected by the scene.
I read about the mp3 player topic on a newspaper column, which explained why older players were not suitable for working out. It started out with CD players skipping which is a fair point, but then went on to assert that early mp3 players could only hold enough songs for maybe one or two workouts. The author effectively implies it's annoying having to frequently upload different songs onto the players. To me this is just frivolous whining. One could also find it annoying to have to plug the player into a computer before they can transfer songs, or that the songs have to be downloaded with a computer or acquired from a CD. Why can't songs just come to my mp3 player automatically, without so much as a voice command? Indeed, as technology progresses, these seemingly unreasonable demands will become the very reasons you will want the latest gadgets, according to the media promoting the products. In the middle of this is the implied notion that one should not go backwards in technology, mainly because older technologies are worth very little these days and companies need high margins for their goods (of course the official reason will be going back is sooo unbearably inconvenient).
As an argument, I lost my mp3 player a few months ago and fell back to the bulkier MD player. Instead of drag-and-dropping songs onto the player, I now need to record it from the computer speakers. It's a pain-in-the-you-know-where but I'm not complaining because I have adapted to it. I just need to allow more time for the process.
Note: having said that I am looking to buy a new mp3 player, but for a different reason: it's simply impractical to record hour long podcasts onto an MD, and repeat it four times every week.
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