Consumer technology is increasingly associated with sinister consequences.
Health scares associated with microwave ovens are a footnote in the history of home electronics. And most people don’t worry anymore about cellphones causing brain tumors. But today we have cellphones being implicated in traffic fatalities and commuter rail crashes. The Internet is blamed for undermining our brains. And electronic gadgets are said to addict us, weaken our ability to focus, and undermine family life.
Not only is consumer technology taking a toll on us, but recent news out of China suggests that it’s killing the people who make it. A story in the New York Times today opened with a profile Ma Xiangqian, the first of 13 people to commit or attempt suicide this year at Foxconn Technology, a China-based manufacturer of consumer electronics for global companies like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. We need our gadgets and we need them cheap: Before his death, Mr. Ma had worked three times the legal number of hours at the equivalent of $1 an hour.
You don’t need to believe that consumer electronics are an unalloyed evil to question whether something is out of balance here.
In my family, we have a quirky resistance to consumer tech. Our Manhattan home has a kind of neo-Amish ethos, lacking microwave oven, cable TV, video games or even a toaster. (We do have computers and broadband Internet access, though, as well as high-end but basic kitchen appliances.) Before bringing a gadget into our lives I always ask how it will increase the quality of our lives. And whether the benefit outweights the cost, the space, the complexity, and a potential future as toxic e-waste.
Our lifestyle is not for everyone. But I suspect net global human welfare might be a little higher if people bought fewer gizmos. What do you think?
