Convergence

Nowadays, a lot of things are converging or in other words, becoming all-in-one. I have a feeling that all this is just a marketing ploy created by those manufacturers to gain more profits.

Remember those days when you had one bottle for shampoo and another bottle for conditioner? Then it became 2-in-1. After that, all hell broke loose and now you have things like the PDA+phone+mobile web browser+handheld game console+camera and who knows what else!!
Suddenly, people are asking if their phones can support GPS and whether you can push mails to it and what not. Air conditioning units are now equipped with ionizers and air filters and God knows what else. Your kitchen appliances are also not spared. How many of you has a rice cooker + a slow cooker + steamer all rolled into one device in your kitchen?

While on the surface all these cramming of different functions into one device seems like a good idea, but I think that all they do is complicate your life exponentially. That coming from me, an IT graduate and don't get me wrong, I like technology but I think the marketing people are taking it a step too far.

Did you stop to think just how many functions you actually use on your ultra modern mobile phone? You make and receive calls on it obviously and send some text (SMSes). Most other features are rarely used, are they not? But there they are, crammed into your so-called phone. What if one of them features goes boink? You declare your phone dead and go shopping for a new one most probably. Even if that function is one that you rarely use. Did it ever occur to you that the more features they put in, the more chances exist that one of them will fail?

As the manuals for these converged devices grow thicker, our lives grow ever more complicated. Before a mobile phone is just a pad with numbers where you can dial a number and make a call to another phone. All you had to do is remember the number and punch it in. Now you have to fiddle with the touch screen to get to the dial pad interface or your contact list and push the correct button to place that same call. Your life just got more complicated, didn't it?

Before, to cook rice, you just need to put in the rice and the right amount of water and press the on button on your dedicated rice cooker. Now you have to push the control panel buttons to make sure that it is set to rice and not soup or anything else, ensure that you didn't leave the preset timer to start cooking only 4 hours later and then hit the start button to achieve the same thing. Complicated, no?

Before, when you do not know the way to get somewhere in your car, you stop and ask some people for directions. Now you have to enter your destination into the GPS unit and then try to read the directions off a tiny screen while driving down the road! And you wonder why road accidents are on the rise!

Everytime we pick up some new fangled device that claims balances your cheque book and clean your socks too, we add another layer of complication into our lives. Do we really need all the functions built-in? Do we really need one device to do-it-all? The answer is most probably, we don't. We just need a device to do what we want it to do and do it the simplest way possible. But being humans we WANT that device to be able to do-it-all, just in case. Also, there's more value in an all-in-one device now, isn't there? You get x numbers of functions for the price of one! How's that for stretching the dollar?! Last but not least, it's way more exciting to tell your neighbours that you got a rice-cooker that can mow the lawn, take out the garbage and paint your house too! Then after that your neighbour will go out and get a rice-cooker that can do all those and even drive the kids to school! That's 1-Up on you, neighbour!

As with the norm in life, everything has a price. As our life gets more complicated, we get more and more stressed out. Heck, who would not be stressed out if one had to attend a one hour course just so that you can utilise your vacuum cleaner cum whatever correctly?!
So in case you are wondering why you are so stressed out, try getting back to the basics. Get only the things that you need and don't fall for those slick advertisements that those marketing people want you to see and believe. Don't converge all your problems into one. It will make a mess so difficult to solve that it will only depress you no end. Break it all apart and tackle them one at a time. Life works better this way.