Since my family is not considered to be a wealthy one, I did not get to experience all those expensive toys or gadgets that other people do growing up. I was most of the time given what is adequate and needed but nothing else beyond that. That helped me a lot in not craving for the hottest gadget in town as my interest in having them is non-existent.
It’s not until I got a job that I started having more interest in having them. I grew up having a computer that is very much useable. During my middle high school years (2003-2005), I was given a Pentium 4 computer and while it’s a decent computer, it’s not considered one of the best at the time. I also did not have any other gaming consoles other than the legendary Ps1. Most of the time I was contented playing brick games because I genuinely think it was cool back then.
Fast forward to the last 5-6 years or so, not a lot has changed. I am using a dual core computer as I’m typing this. I still do not have a console (PS1 is dead by now) and I don’t have a tablet or any fancy gadgets like that. Now I mentioned the word “not a lot” which means some things have changed.
Couple of months ago I got myself a Nexus 5 mobile phone to upgrade from my ancient Samsung Galaxy Mini purchased in 2011. Imagine the massive upgrade in Android version as I went from Froyo to Kitkat in one change. The Nexus 5 at the time of this writing is a flagship from LG/Google (albeit a cheaper one).
Even longer before that I also purchased a decent camera in Sony Nex 6 which definitely was expensive. Prior to that I have an even more ancient Sony DSC-whatever camera that uses AA batteries geez. Of course the Sony Nex 6 camera is purchased with a purpose in mind which is to learn photography by investing time and money into it. I won’t say I’m going to be looking for a career centered around it but I want to hone a skill in that.
Finally, there is this headphone hobby which is by far the most expensive investment that I have. It started sometime late in 2011 and the fruit of that is the creation of Headphone Philippines which is primarily a headphone review website. While the hobby is expensive and the return from a financial standpoint is quite minimal, I would say that I’m very happy and satisfied doing this whole headphone thing.
In the next 4-6 months I am planning on upgrading my main workstation which by the way is still an Intel Dual Core that has a passmark of 1,200 (yuck!). I would obviously not go for the best but anything that will make me more efficient is a good and worthy upgrade.
You can say one way or another that me having a consistent job, while still getting some money online has allowed me to change a bit in terms of how I view gadgets and new technologies in general. While I certainly won’t spent a fortune on things that are not useful to me, if given the right time and preparation (financially), I can’t see why I won’t be able to catch up on new technologies and upgrade myself a bit for the better hopefully. Then again, there’s this risk of spending too much and spending what you don’t actually have which I have to be extremely careful about.
Technologies also don’t just revolve around physical things like gadgets, etc. It’s also found online like this blog and my other blogs, my hosting, CMS software that I’m using, CDN network that I’m on, email newsletter system, and many other things that I probably don’t even know myself.
Finally, it might not necessarily be purely tech but over the past couple of years I’ve started buying more stuff online as oppose to the traditional ways. For gadgets that I’m not able to find locally I use Amazon. For clothing, I use a company called Zalora and they actually have a wide inventory of items to choose from. Fila Philippines is one of the examples. The classic Fila brand isn’t widely sold in malls these days but Zalora has them which is nice.
It would be interesting to see how buying clothing and other stuff online will grow more in the coming years as people start discovering and realizing how convenient this is when compared to physically going to stores.
Nonetheless, I guess it’s safe to say that I’m catching up a bit here.