I used to be excited about new tech, but I rarely am anymore

niek_pas

> Of course nowadays days I see the downsides of these devices and we're getting to a point where the cons outweigh the pros, but back when I bought the first smart phone (I guess in 2012 or so, I was relatively late to the party) it felt like a leap into the future compared to what I had before. I know a lot of people have a troubled relationship to their phone, but this is really surprising to me. Would I want to go back to a world where I can't conveniently contact people, navigate the world, look up anything I want to know in an second, and set timers by yelling at the air rather than getting sticky foccacia dough in the cracks of my egg timer? Not even a little bit. The last time I personally felt the excitement the author describes was probably with the announcement of Apple Vision Pro, but unfortunately that product went nowhere.

davidw

High quality eBikes are pretty amazing: I have nearly 4000 miles on one of ours, and nearly all of those are replacing car trips around town, including most of our grocery shopping. While not revolutionary - they're kind of an incremental improvement - I'm pretty impressed by all the things a cheap Chromebook can do.

astura

There's a term for that, it's called "getting old" and older people have been saying this kinda stuff for generations.

pbohun

I feel the same way. I think the difference is that new tech used to be an improvement to your life. New tech is there simply to suck life (your attention) and money away from you. There are exceptions of course, But the general trend is worrying.

lenerdenator

I've been playing Project Zomboid with my friends. It's an isometric survival game set in 1993 in a fictional area around Louisville, Kentucky. It has VHS tapes, TV and radio broadcasts, ham radio, CDs, and landlines in it. So far in my playing experience, there's no real internet component. There's some sort of disease outbreak that turns people into zombies and society starts to collapse. Eventually things like the power grid and water/sewage infrastructure break down. Food rots. Gasoline runs out. It's basically guaranteed that you and your teammates will die in this game. Even after living through a pandemic and all of the shit that came with it, and despite the grim atmosphere of the game, I still miss the time period that this game symbolized . I know I was only a child during the 90s and the era had its real problems, but there were good things about it and the state of technology at the time that have gotten worse in the decades since. It was a time when media was a physical good and had meaning, when there wasn't a constant deluge of information, when my attention was less valuable than advertisers have made it today, and there was, at least for the majority of society, a shared informational reality. That's all gone and there are massively powerful interests working to make sure it stays gone.

deflator

I still get excited by the sheer power of current and upcoming tech It may be the same stuff we had 20 years ago, but the specs! What was a supercomputer before is now just a component in a datacenter, one of 72 per rack.

1attice

Tech is no longer exciting to me because I no longer feel a connection between tech improvement and world (or personal life) improvement. I used to read sci fi for the wonder, but now I read it with dread, for Chekov's Gun is a Torment Nexus, and if you introduce a Torment Nexus in Act 1 of a sci fi dystopia, it will be fired IRL by act 3. Deeper lurks a more chilling question: what, on a dying planet run by fascists, should I do with my time?

Aurornis

I remember my grandparents making this exact same complaint: All of the new technologies during their younger years were amazing and improved the world. All of the technologies that came along in their later years were only complicating life after they had settled into comfortable routines. In my hobbies and other real world activities I cross paths with people in their 20s a lot. It’s really refreshing to see their excitement about new technologies and the future, contrasted with all the cynicism you get when you spend time in places with a lot of jaded adults who wish the world would stop changing. I think it’s natural to wish that technology would pause right at the point in your life and career where you’ve got it all figured out and lose your appetite for new things. It feels good to be on top of it all and feel like your knowledge, routines, and career skills are never going to go out of style. It feels uncomfortable when the world continues to change after you’ve settled into something familiar and routine.

boxed

You do have to move your focus for sure. Gadgets used to be cool, but now you'd have to look at SpaceX or Stoke for space, and all the crazy ambitious fusion startups, or Quaise. Those are the ones I'm tracking at least..

handzhiev

I used to not be excited about the next consumer tech gadget or the next JS framework, but I am now pretty excited about transforming new tech now (AI, energy, space, etc).

fantasizr

I'm excited about self driving cars for aging boomer and drunk mobility. Most consumer tech seems to be pure agitation and slop. Can't seem to think that ways to engage media is getting better (paid streaming now with ads etc.) TVs take a forever to change channel, call quality seems to be worse than analog etc.

zer00eyz

Cheap radios are in everything now. Think about all the fun wifi, zigbee, matter devices that you can play with (if you are inclined). Meshtastic and LoRa is a great toy to play with. The kitchen is full of interesting things, Sous Vide is great, the air fryer is... interesting and useful. Lots of people love their robot vacuum LED strip lighting has gone from nerdy to high design and has interesting features now. Those "VCR" and "iPhone" moments are rare. There is a lot of practical innovations that make my life better and I would be hard pressed to give up.

raincole

It's called getting older.

sickophancy

Consider that it's probably not tech but rather a cycle of aesthetics you're experiencing. Just like films, music, or even sports, there are eras of a certain paradigm or aesthetic. What we consider the 'peak' is always evaluated in retrospect or in comparison to a previous peak. Neurologically, humans are naturally predisposed to evaluate the world in terms of "how much pleasure" an activity gives, and when you experience "more pleasure" (for example, riding a fast rollercoaster vs. a slow one) then the previous experience is often discarded or treated as inferior. In some cases that's true, but, by and large, these comparisons are again purely psychic in nature. What you viewed as more exciting was an age where advertising didn't cheapen your experiences . Overexposure/stimulation as a means of advertising, co-opted with combining social media with advertising to a startling degree is the true culprit behind what you're seeing, and as a captive audience, like the prisoners in Plato's cave, you are unable to look away...

jpecar

Don't worry, you're just getting old. It happens to all of us. At some point we simply stop being excited about new shiny things and start to prefer stuff we know and rely on. In especially bad cases, some start seeing new shiny things as threat to the stability of their lives.

joshdavham

> If you are in your 20s now and feel like writing down your thoughts about this topic, consider yourself challenged! I'd love to read them. I’m 29 so I guess I just barely qualify haha. But overall, I agree with your writing and can say as a technologist myself, I also rarely get excited about new technology - nor do my peers. There are occasional exceptions though. Near the beginning of this current GenAI revolution, I was frequently excited. Watching that SpaceX rocket land back on earth had me on the edge of my seat. I also recently bought AirPods and found the conversation awareness feature to be incredible. Similarly, I got my first fitness tracker and find it mind blowing how much it can measure by just zapping my wrist with light.

bee_rider

It isn’t that surprising that computers have become somewhat crap as they’ve gained ubiquitous adoption (that’s just the nature of appealing to everyone). IMO it is more surprising that nothing has really filled in that gap.

hombre_fatal

This is good because there are much better places to find fulfillment. It's like when you get a new smartphone and you baby it for those first couple weeks until, bam, it falls and gets a ding in it. Then after a brief sense of loss, you suddenly see it as a tool with utility and a lifespan. I think that's where you want to be with material things and technology.

liendolucas

The last technology that truly excited me was the ebook. I truly believe is one of the greatest gadgets ever invented. It's just fantastic the disconnection you get with it, the quality of the screen, how long battery lasts and obviously how many books you can carry in a small package.

baigy

The marginal payoff from incremental innovation produces lesser and lesser endorphins as we age. They increasingly become a smaller part of our experiences. And btw, by and large, this happens to every feeling, not just excitement from technological innovation.