Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Mobile phones are the new cultural gold
Have you noticed how every crime report that talks of a techie getting murdered or mugged inevitably mentions that the culprit used the illbegotten wealth to buy a mobile phone?
It used to be that you made a show of status with gold jewellery. Now it’s done with mobile phones.
And yet, the phone’s value as an electronic device depreciates rapidly. It’s not like gold, which serves the dual purpose of status and savings. It’s a mere straw-grasp into the social hierarchy. Unless the value of being connected trumps that of the physical device.
A profound cultural shift is afoot.
It used to be that you made a show of status with gold jewellery. Now it’s done with mobile phones.
And yet, the phone’s value as an electronic device depreciates rapidly. It’s not like gold, which serves the dual purpose of status and savings. It’s a mere straw-grasp into the social hierarchy. Unless the value of being connected trumps that of the physical device.
A profound cultural shift is afoot.
brainz — May 16, 2007 2:44:40 PM — # ↩
Kiran Jonnalagadda — May 16, 2007 2:49:21 PM — # ↩
sriniram — May 17, 2007 10:44:35 AM — # ↩
Most of Asia considers a mobile phone as a fashion accessory. Remember the hello kitty phones in Japan, and the gold & diamond studded hideousness from China?
OTOH, the mobile phone is not regarded in the same light in the US where phone operators are only now discovering that fashionable new phones are an easy way to persuade customers to switch. Even so the trend of popularity is really in favor of the technically capable phones like the treo, and now the iPhone - really useful devices unlike the overpriced bejeweled asian fantasies.