By the time you read to the end of this column, the laptop on which it was written will have been hurled out the window. So you’d better duck.
I’ve been told in no uncertain terms by those familiar with the field – those irritatingly self-certain types known as computer experts – that there’s not much point hanging on to it: why, it’s positively ancient! Surely I realise it’s time for an upgrade?
Err, not really. This groovy little thing – light as a feather, world’s coolest brand – was only bought in 2010: that’s just four years ago! It’s so light I can hold it up with one finger. It’s beautifully designed and functions just as it should. Only problem is it’s slowing to a crawl and no matter how much stuff – documents, photos – I delete from the drive, the computer keeps telling me the disk is full and has no more room to even manage start up. But why? Why can’t it handle any more data or documents? Why is something so young behaving like someone so damn old?
It’s all to do with memory, of course (as it will be with all of us one day, but that’s for another time). The poor thing just can’t retain any more detail and, I have to say, I understand how it feels. Up to a point.
It’s not like I’m asking it to remember massive downloads or large programs or files. My computers have always been glorified typewriters, only ever asked to write documents and do a little internet browsing. I’m amazed that something this sophisticated can’t handle a few years of that.
I could buy some more memory, but the experts seem to sneer at that: why not just get a new one?
Well, I know how to answer that. Because in-built obsolescence makes me furious. Because the thought of simply tossing this extraordinary achievement in design, functionality and computer electronics on the scrapheap seems absolutely absurd. Because surely there’s a way to make things last even longer than the marketers want you to believe? Maybe this kind of digital sophistication just reveals me as a closet hoarder; do I really need to keep all this stuff on my computer?
What am I keeping it for? There are back-up drives and memory sticks – but why keep them as well? The other day I found a bunch of old floppy disks – and I mean those eight-inch ones: what the hell is on them and why were they kept?
A friend I know has documented his children’s lives in all the formats that track their existence: Super 8, VHS, digital video, and has saved the data in all memory forms for editing the inevitable 21st birthday video. He gets the shakes at the thought of the day of reckoning when he has to bring together 10 irreconcilable formats. So, thank you God of Obsolescence and the cult worship of all things new.
In a pathetic kind of way, I know I’m attempting to hold a last line of defence against a consumer juggernaut that overran another way of living a long time ago: it really is like being one of those World War II combatants still grimly defending a long-forgotten Pacific Island. I know the war is over: I just don’t want to believe it.
Virginia Trioli is co-host of ABC News Breakfast on ABC1 and ABC News 24, 6-9am weekdays.
