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Gadgets seduce buyers with newness, not need

By DAVE GUSSOW
Published December 19, 2005

Before you rush out this week to pick up that one last gadget for the holidays, Beverly J. Davis wants you to take a test.

The main question to ask, says Davis, an assistant professor in the College of Technology at Purdue University, is: Are you buying because you or the gift recipient just want the gadget, or because you need it?

"Because everyone else has it" reverberates as a familiar refrain on holiday wish lists. And that is definitely a symptom of "technoism," a term Davis coined to describe purchases made to keep up rather than to meet a particular function.

"Our kids kids really play on our technoism," Davis said. "They play it out with their parents."

Davis, 48, has been at Purdue seven years and studies how people interact with technology. The author of Technoism: At the Crossroads of Society and Technology, even Davis has fallen victim to technoism.

At one point, she didn't have a projector for PowerPoint presentations for her classes. The college had no money in the budget, so she bought one herself.

"I felt like I was behind," she said. "I was convinced I had to have it."

The projector soon had an impact on the class, one Davis did not anticipate. "There was little interaction," she said. "I was doing all the talking."

Eventually, she adapted and learned a valuable lesson about technology: "When it comes right down to it, you learn to let it serve you instead of rule your life."

Davis blames herself and consumers for perpetuating technoism, not the industry or marketers. The industry is providing what consumers want, and marketers are just doing their jobs, she says.

Indeed, she's not the only one to point the finger at consumers. Pamela Danziger, author of Why People Buy Things They Don't Need (www.whypeoplebuy.com/) says people are spending less on necessities such as food, clothing and housing and more on purchases driven "by emotion and desire."

Technoism carries a price, too, not only in money spent on gadgets that gather dust but also for the pressure that people feel to buy, Davis says.

She tells a story about a nephew who wanted a pay-as-you-go cell phone as a gift one year. But he didn't have money to maintain it. Now he wants a camera phone. Before she gives the upgrade as a gift, Davis says, she has to consider how he used, or didn't use, the other one.

"We're not making informed, educated decisions," Davis said. "We're not seeing if it fits our lifestyle. ... Technoism is about that pressure, that blind compliance, to keep buying, buying and buying."

She's just now getting around to figuring out her iPod, two years after getting it. She sees the problem in business, where companies spend millions on equipment that is either not used or underused.

The trend toward more mobile gadgets, from cell phones to Internet access to digital music players, is making the problem worse. "The more wireless you have, the more new technology you want."

Davis again pleads guilty on that front, saying she loves her cell phone and regrets buying a laptop computer that she describes as heavy and bulky.

And the BlackBerry. Now you're talking. "I should have waited to get one of those instead of the laptop," Davis said.

Even that has a downside, she admits: "I don't want to be available 24/7."

She has devised a test for people to assess their degree of technoism, and to think about it before they slap down their credit card the next time.

And lest anyone thinks Davis is antitech, she is not.

"I love it," she said. "I can't live without it."

--Dave Gussow can be reached at dgussow@sptimes.com or 727 445-4165.

[Last modified December 19, 2005, 01:38:18]