Singapore lifestyle
I just bought a cell-phone
Tech gadgets expensive, sure but you can ignore them only if you migrate to Somalia. By Seah Chiang Nee. Streats.
Apr 19, 2004

I have finally succumbed to the national cellphone obsession. I've bought one.

For 10 years, I'd fought the siren calls for me to equip myself with high-tech conveniences that I do not really need. The cellphone was, I told myself, one of them.

I work from home and my fixed-line phone is sufficient for my needs. Besides, I have no use for a cellphone's "Swiss knife" features like MP3 music, game console, video recorder or even digital camera.

So why am I now in possession of one?

I guess I lost my nerve.

My fear of being left behind in this mobile world where teenagers were streets ahead of me caused me to change my mind about cellphones.

After all, I consoled myself, the darn thing is about to move into the era of digital payment. And it could contain stored personal information that could save my life one day.

This experience with the cellphone is just another example of how technological change is dragging me screaming into the New Era.

I am not alone.

What is disturbing is that many of us do not realise that we are making a costly transition.

The impact of the "modernisation" process dawned on me only after my son had left to study in the US.

I opened a drawer in one of his cupboards and found it packed with dozens of hand-held gadgets, from the first Sony Walkman to the latest music players, from Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to game consoles.

There were also several generations of cellphones and a laptop. On top of all this, there was the Internet service that he absolutely needed.

All this hardware and services naturally presented me with a pile of bills that arrived promptly every month.

Of course, I'm not the only parent to be faced with this. It's taking a toll on all our wallets.

Many parents like myself simply can't say "no" to our children's request for newer tech toys unless we are prepared to see them grow up as their peers must do in a Somali village.

And Big Business knows it, advertising and promoting every new tech thing they roll out, imbuing these with a "must-have" aura.

The costs in time and money, I fear, will continue to rise as we head unwillingly towards what someone called "the 24-hour interconnected, hyperactive, sleep-deprived, e-mail-fuelled world".

As I struggle for hours to programme my new cellphone, I reflect on how technology has changed during the 40 years of my journalistic life.

It began in 1960 with a ballpoint pen, moving to the typewriter, before graduating to the computer.

Some of you may remember the closure in 2000 of typewriter-maker Olivetti's plant in Singapore that produced 100,000 electric typewriters for the world.

When this happened, it was like part of my own life came to a close. For many years, I had travelled the length and breadth of Asia with a battered, orange "baby" Olivetti.

No journalist my age can talk about the typewriter without a deep sense of gratitude. But it lost out to one of mankind's greatest inventions - the personal computer.

The technological "changing of the guard" drove home to me how imbalanced development can be. When the typewriter was thrown out as obsolete by the advanced nations, the other half of the world was too poor to buy, or know how to operate, one.

The advances in technology have also made more stark how "deprived" we journalists who had covered Asia's wars and riots in the 60s were.

A cellphone during that era would have been a heaven-sent. Instead we had to rely on the walkie-talkie, an unpredictable piece of work at best.

It was blocked by distance and tall buildings - and, in some places like Singapore, government regulations.

I found that out when my editor in Reuters Saigon, asked me to "pick up" five sets when I returned for a brief home rest. The shopkeeper at Change Alley told me: "They're banned here. You can't use it in Singapore."

When he saw my face drop, he quickly added: "You can own it but you can't use it!" he laughed. Since I was buying it for use abroad, well that was okay. Apparently, the police didn't want it to be used for crime, from kidnapping to illegal horse racing.

As I tinker with my cellphone, I paused to reflect on how far we've come since.

(This article was first published in STREATS on Apr 13, 2004)