Technological Addiction Sells

2 Pages 621 Words

Technological Addiction Sells
In today’s society technology plays a large roll in everyday life. A person can’t even wake up in the morning without a high tech alarm clock. Technology and society are completely interwoven. “Technology has become our environment as well as our ideology,” writes the Dutch social critic Michiel Schwarz. “We no longer use technology, we live it” (Schwarz & Jansma, 1989, p.3). People have come to a point in society where they can do almost nothing without technology being involved. They need it to have control in their lives. “It is this desire for control that often backfires when humans assume a position of extreme dependence on technical artifacts, and the lines blur between who is the master and who is the slave” (Glendisdrug, 2001, p. 23A ). Therefore when something goes wrong and technology doesn’t work quite the way they hope or expect it to the tables turn and technology begins to control them.
An ad from the computer company Compaq, found in PC Magazine, plays on this need of control in people’s lives and this complete reliance on the technology around them. The ad portrays a middle aged business woman carrying a Compaq laptop as she walks leisurely through the park. Compaq is playing on the fact that computers can be bulky which ties one down to a desk and the indoors. This ad is showing they can provide a computer that can give one the freedom to leave their desk and take their work with them to the park or wherever they might want to be. It continues to support the idea that people have the control to take technology where they want to when they need to, proving they have become so reliant on technology that they cannot even leave home for a leisurely walk in the park without taking their computer, their life, with them.
The slogan for this ad “Our logo. Your Trademark.” continues to make a person believe they need this computer and cannot live without t...