“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life”.– Sigmund Freud
Hello, are you thinking of the next phone, car, Tv or a new technology to acquire? Are you saving or planning to trade-in or sell something valuable to have it? Well, then pause and read this article.
It is quite common among many, particularly youths, even those not savvy about tech, to be very enthusiastic about exploring new technologies. I have observed that there is this inquisitiveness or should I say desperation among young and old, to know “how it works” or to just have a feel of it. To a few, the drive might be to be among the league of “first users” to flaunt their wealth and assert their financial superiority among their peers and partners, usually on social media. Yet for some others, the drive might be psychological in the sense of some hedonistic drives or an obsession for new technology. This article is a trigger to switch off your passion mode and activate your rational mode to evaluate your choices, and question the benefits you derive or the value that you think a piece of technology might add before craving it.
To illustrate my point,
let’s look at the history of product releases in the Samsung Note product line.
Samsung Note 1, the first in the Samsung Note flagship, was released on October 29, 2011. Its successor, Galaxy Note II (also known as Note 2) was released in October 2012. The Galaxy Note 3 was unveiled on September 4, 2013, with its worldwide release beginning later in the month. The Galaxy Note 4 was made public on 3 September 2014 and was released globally in October 2014. Samsung Note 5 was announced on 13 August 2015 and became available region by region from 21 August 2015. There was no Note 6. Find out why. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was brought forth on 2 August 2016 and officially released on 19 August 2016. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 was unveiled on 23 August 2017 and became available on 15 September 2017. Samsung Note 9 was able to be purchased on 9 August 2018. Samsung Galaxy Note 10 series has three models (Note 10, Note 10+, Note 10 lite). All were promulgated on 7 August 2019 and became available by region on August 23, 2019. In 2020 Samsung decided to break the sequence of naming its Note flagship, so instead of Note 11, Samsung used the year of production to name Note 20. Note 20 was announced on 5 August 2020 alongside the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Watch 3, Galaxy Buds Live, and Samsung Galaxy Tab S7. All were first released on 21 August 2020.
The trajectory of releases in the Samsung Note flagship reveals that the chronological space between one generation and another is roughly one year. I am sure not many users pre-order these phones before the actual day of release, so depending on when you purchase one, it may be more or less than 5 or 6 months to the date of the next release. The questions at this point would be: Is it worth buying a new phone at an expensive price and then discarding it a few months later to get a newer version? Do the technological improvements in the new version justify disposing or trading in the old? From observation, I haven’t seen significant changes in newer versions, apart from an increase in RAM, storage size, camera resolution, screen size, and battery capacity which often do not matter much. Ok, pause to look at this.👇
The more important questions are: What benefits will the new or improved features offer me in my job or academic career? Should I give up valuable investments to purchase a new version of electronics that is merely a liability?
We can review our choices when we look at the technology acceptance model (TAM) as proposed by Davies (1989). This model underlines two major factors that determine people’s adoption and usage of technology: Perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU )
The following questions, which are adapted from the original questions of the TAM, come to mind in evaluating the usefulness of a technological artifact.
- Will using this product enable me to accomplish tasks more quickly?
- Will using this product improve my job or academic performance?
- Will using this product in my job, career, or school increase my productivity or grade?
- Will using this product enhance my effectiveness in my job, career or school?
- Will using this product make it easier to do my job or assignment?
- Will this product be more useful for me than what I now have?
It I also common for people to purchase a new technology only to discover that due to its complexity, and their lack of tech skills, they are unable to use it. At this point, a decision needs to be made to sell or trade-in that piece of technology, losing a significant part of the original cost due to usage. You might also consider asking yourself these additional questions before buying.
Ease of use questions taken from original PEOU items
- Will learning to operate this product be easy for me?
- Will I then be able to become skillful at using this product?
- Will I be able to become sufficiently skillful to get this product to do what I want it to do?
- Will my interaction with this product be clear and understandable?
- Will I find interaction with this product flexible?
Answering the above questions, I believe should help you make a solid decision that is based on the value derivable from the use of technology. I would like to share the following with people using expensive phones with internal storage memory above 64GB or 128GB and complaining about lack of storage space For such people, low storage memory might be a trigger to get a newer phone with 512GB. As you know, the reality is that in this age of social media, with volumes of data generated daily via WhatsApp and other apps, 64GB can easily be filled up in just 1 month. I have advised in the past for people to get cloud-based storage ( Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Samsung Cloud, Apple iCloud, or others ) to upload sensitive and valuable information and to delete unnecessary files from phones daily.
I hope reading this article might give you a new perspective on the adoption of the latest technological device. Thanks!
