Phone companies drive my nutty(er than I already am). They find little ways of sucking you into their vortex. Recently I was on the search for a new phone. I used to have a Cingular 8125 (goes by many other names too) that I was completely happy with…until I dropped it. Whoops. To replace my phone I was hoping my new phone to have windows mobile and a few other goodies that my old phone had such as wifi. I am on AT&T’s cell phone network and my phone was up for their upgrade program, meaning I could buy a phone from them with their “2-year commitment pricing.” Ya, it does say two year. This is just one way the company wraps you around their finger. I didn’t have the money to pay for a new phone unlocked (upwards of $400) and AT&T’s no commitment pricing is just as high. Which means if I wanted to buy the phone I wanted I would be trapped into their 2-year contract.
The two-year contract is another thing they do to control your cell phone lives. My friend Chris’s cell phone recently broke, but since he is in a two-year agreement, he can’t buy a new phone from AT&T, without spending a lot of money. Do they have a heart? I guess that’s a bit drastic of me. Dare I say it, but it IS just a cell phone. Then again, society has created a world where cell phones have almost become a necessity. I hate to find myself so materialistic. But in my life it has come to a point where I almost need a cell phone, going to and from school, and staying after school. In this world of money and power it’s slightly understandable, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.
In the end I ended up buying the HTC TyTN (which also goes by many other name). I bought it on ebay, trying to avoid AT&T altogether and it worked. Then two months later I saw the phone I had originally wanted go on sale refurbished for the same price I bought my phone that was older and had less features. Sigh…that is the story of my phone troubles and how AT&T is corrupt. I could have gone more in depth of what happened. Said every single thing that I did and they did, but that’s not the point.
The phone companies are only looking out for themselves and I guess that’s the world we live in. Life is based on money. I can’t give you hat I have sewed in return for a new cell phone. What bothers me the most about this is how I have been desensitized to materialism. I found myself getting really mad, about a cell phone. Yes, I wanted it and there are always going to be wants in my life that have material base, but I got overly exasperated over one little thing. Society has created a world where I care too much over technology, but this is where I get confused. I am in constant struggle between my geeky side and for lack of better words, my other side. How I would love to be one of the few to not have a cell phone, to be out of the circle of connection, to send letters over the mail. If I were to do that I would have to give up my precious cell phone.
All of this also leads back to the theory that everything today is not built to last. We are almost witnessing the absence of antiques. What, are you going to go to an antique store to buy an old Ipod? I don’t think so. It is pretty much the same thought as steam punk.
