|
Student Union
Joy Furushima
|
Teenagers get caught up in marketing sand trap
Technology of the present is exceedingly complex, and it gets worse by the second. All because of something I like to call the Technological Corporate-Competition Cycle. The cycle commences when someone comes up with a great idea and decides to release it to the public. Someone in another corporation decides to make that same idea for their company and they, too, release it to the public. Why? Because Person 1 is making a big profit off of that particular idea and Person 2 wants a big profit too. Bottom line: Everyone wants money. But such corporations need to stop with these competitions. It becomes a sand trap for anyone who decides at any point to purchase one of the products.
Here is where I come in. I purchase the product Person 1 makes. Then a few months later, a random third company comes up with new technology that is somehow more convenient than the thing companies No. 1 and 2 came up with. So of course, companies 1 and 2 need to keep up with the times, thus creating "thing2" to match and hopefully outsell each of their competitors. Everything in the world then acts in accordance to "thing2" and tosses the old one out the window. Since everyone chucked their old gadget, the companies don't need to fix, sell or make parts for the original. Being old technology, my original "thing" eventually needs some sort of fixing or spare part and I am forced to spend an insane amount of money on the new thing the three manufacturers have produced.
But wait! A mere couple of weeks later, Company 2 comes out with "thing2" ... in color! Neat! Everyone again tosses their now outdated "thing2" in order to get "thing2" in color. Which is obviously so much cooler, so I end up getting one as well. Company No. 1, the competition sensation flowing through their bones, creates thing2 ... in color ... with Bluetooth capability! Company No. 3, feeling left out, comes out with thing2 in color, with Bluetooth capability AND a camera function! Then Company 2 updates their model to something very similar and Company 1 matches it and raises the stakes by putting MP3 files on it!
At this point, once again the "old" technology is obsolete ... forcing the consumer to once again chuck the old gadgets and buy the new ones. But then Company 3 makes theirs the size of a Tic-Tac! Company 1 has a GPS navigation system on it! Company 2 adds a portable toilet function to theirs!
It's a ridiculous endless cycle that forces us to buy new things to replace our "old" new things that are still perfectly good and up to the standards of what it originally should be. The cycle initially makes us spend money on a camera, phone, MP3 player. Then we feel the need to buy a new camera phone and MP3 player. Then comes a smaller camera, phone MP3 player. Blah, blah, blah. It's the stupid cycle of corporations that makes us spend more money on "better" things that nobody really needs.
Teenagers just don't have money to keep up with the times anymore, but the corporations continue to market their items to target them. The young people of today are all caught so deep within the cycle and the fact that the newest gadget will make them look oh so cool to other teens that they're willing to drop all their cash just to get the latest thing for themselves. This Technological Corporate-Competition Cycle must be put to an end before life as we know it internally combusts and we are forced to buy a new, smaller version of it.
Joy Furushima is a senior at Moanalua High School.
Join the Student Union
Student Union is a forum for Hawaii's teenagers to tell the community what's on their minds and in their hearts. It appears every Thursday. We welcome opinions of no more than 700 words on any topic. Please include your name, address and phone number. E-mail to letters@starbulletin.com, fax to 529-4750 or mail to Student Union, Editorial Page, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu, HI 96813. For more information, contact Jeff Finney at 529-4735 or jfinney@starbulletin.com
|