Today in class we discussed the topic of obsolete technology. It is honestly insane how quickly technology becomes obsolete--or what we determine as being obsolete--these days. I remember when it was all the rage to have a TV that had a VHS already hooked up to it, now both the kind of TV and VHS player are almost completely obsolete. At just about 20 years old, technology has evolved extremely significantly during my lifetime. It's funny when you think about the things that used to be so cool and status symbols when we were younger that now are basically worthless--like my portable tape player and boom box. Those were two of my favorite pieces of technology and we do not even use them at all anymore! The discussion in class today really got me thinking about why technology becomes obsolete so quickly and I found some answers in Paul Chavez's article, "The Beauty of Becoming Obsolete."
Chavez explains that there are two types of obsoleteness, evolutionary and disruptive. Evolutionary obsoleteness refers to a type of product being improved over time and new versions being produced. Take Iphone for example, it seems like a new version comes out all of the time--each version just a little bit better than the other. This type of obsoleteness is very common today, especially when it comes to cellphones and also televisions. Take my first example for instance, my TV/VHS combo was replaced with HD LCD TVs that work much better. Disruptive obsoleteness refers to a certain type of technology gets replaced with a different type. Chavez used email as an example of disruptive obsoleteness, however I don't feel this is entirely applicable since we, as college students, have to use email all of the time to keep in contact with our professors. BUT it really has declined in popularity due to the rise in texting, social media, and like such things. I keep going back to VHS, but it really applies to both disruptive and evolutionary obsoleteness. VHS tapes are almost completely obsolete. I know in my house, we do not have a VHS player and all of the ones we did have, have since stopped working (which would refer to disruptive obsoleteness). Evolutionary obsoleteness applies because VHS has been replaced by DVDs and DVDs have been replaced by Blue Ray--it is a truly evolutionary process (Chavez, 2012).
This explanation made the most sense to me as to why technology becomes obsolete so quickly. Our culture is changing all of the time and it only makes sense that technology would change as well. Obsoleteness is not exactly a bad thing because when one piece of technology becomes obsolete, another one emerges and is more advanced than the last. It is important to note that both types of obsoleteness occur and that both are prevalent with technology today.
Chavez, P. 2012. The beauty of becoming obsolete. AV network. Retrieved from: http://www.avnetwork.com/columns/0020/the-beauty-of-becoming-obsolete/89620
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