Phones, TVs and Watches are essential and commonly used tech gadgets. However, as soon as you add the word ‘smart’ in front of each one of those devices, they’ll make your life a whole lot more complicated and frustrating…because each ‘smart’ device comes with its own baggage.
What does ‘smart’ actually mean? Other than expensive, it means excess and access. Excess in terms of the amount of things you can access, and what can access you.
Let’s start with smart phones.
Do you remember the days when cell phones first came out and people started asking you, “why do you have a cell phone”? Your answer was simply, “it’s just in case of an emergency.” Then things started to spiral out of control.
Those “emergency” calls became more and more frequent leaving you with an insane bill at the end of the month, because cell phone companies used to charge an arm and a leg back in the day (they still do). Then SMSing took over, 160 characters! What on earth could you write with 160 characters? “C u ltr, bby”.
You could say this was the start of telecommunications complications and frustrations because we basically had to invent a new dictionary. And as time progressed, so did our phones. Better cameras led to us giving up on our actual cameras. Better messaging gave us the freedom to say what we wanted without limits (red flag). Then, when EDGE turned into 3G, we had access to the world, literally.
We eventually started to learn that this access works both ways. You’re now getting bombarded with notifications from every social platform you’ve dropped a selfie on, and emails from both your work and personal accounts (What’s your ‘unread’ number sitting at?) You simply can’t switch off now because you might miss something, important or otherwise.
You see. Baggage.
Now, onto smart TVs.
Think back to your childhood, how many of you were your parent’s remote control? TV back then was already frustrating because there were only 3 channels to choose (4 if you were lucky). Then satellite TV came out and our choices of what to watch became exponential. We became more and more glued to our couches and beds, but only at specific times, of course.
In those days missing your favourite show meant missing out on it for good. Zero repeats. Here we are twenty years later with a TV that can access every movie streaming site under the sun, ensuring you never miss out on anything.
But here’s the biggest irritation: What Do You Watch? You end up spending more time finding something to watch…than actually watching something.
Baggage.
And lastly, smart watches.
What happened to the good old days of having a watch that just told you the time? Two little hands that controlled your everyday schedule. And the only “tech” inside of it was its waterproofing. Simple and Satisfactory. Does what it says on the box. Now, the times have changed (excuse the pun).
Your watch can do a WHOLE lot more than just give you the time. It gives you things you didn’t know you needed, and end up obsessing over. Take the step counter for example. You are likely to focus more on that than the actual time. So, when you spend too much time finding something to watch on your smart TV, your watch will let you know that you’re being a couch potato.
Worse than that is linking your smart watch to your smart phone…which links you to your social media accounts, which leads to everyone you know, knowing you’re a couch potato. It happened to tafire deli.
Wimpy wants to remind you that anything can happen in a day, a week, a month or even a year, which is why you should switch off and enjoy every moment, now. Order a 90g beef patty and boerie grill with chips and toast for only R59.90. Heck, why not throw in a milkshake at the same time, you’ve got nothing to lose.
Enjoy this moment now, and click here to view Wimpy’s latest promotions.
