Two years ago, I renewed my contract with Vodafone and upgraded my mobile handset to a Samsung Galaxy S6. It has served me well over the last twenty-four months but the battery has been playing up of late and the phone barely survived a day on a full charge. Luckily, I became eligible for a new handset last week, so I decided upon the Samsung Galaxy S8. Now technophiles and phone aficionados have all informed me (AKA bored me) that there’s a newer Samsung handset being released in spring 2018. But my relationship with gadgets and the like has radically changed and I am no longer compelled to be at the cutting edge of technology. The S8 is more than adequate for my needs and is a tried and tested model. It arrived today and mercifully migrating all my personal data was an easy process, thanks to cloud based backups.

I can remember a time when upgrading my phone was a major source of excitement. If there was something shiny and new available, then I had to have it. More often than not it was simply the allure of the next big thing and there were no significant gains or benefits in upgrading. Unless you count that vicarious short term fix one gets when conspicuously consuming. At the time I was happy to remain on the technology treadmill and had no intention of getting off. However in the last decade there’s been a major shift in my relationship with consumer electronics. I now buy according to my needs rather than just for the sake of having what’s currently perceived as best. Once you cease to see gadgets and electrical devices as fashion accessories but simply as functional tools, then a lot changes. Furthermore it changes for the better.