The beeb writes about how Britons are growing ‘digitally obese’, carting round virtual truckloads of data with us since the advent of hard drive-based gadgets like the iPod. They say “if digital hoarding habits continue on this scale, people could be carrying around a “digitally obese” 20 gigabytes by next year.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone anywhere without my constant digital companion, the laptop. Sure it’s bulkier than an iPod (I will get one eventually, oh yes), but it’s invaluable to have my office desk with me wherever I am.
Last time I spent the weekend away without the laptop, my train back to Norwich on Monday morning was delayed by several hours. Whenever that’s happened since then, it’s had little impact on my working day.
As for the beeb’s estimate of 20gb by next year … hah! I’m already a real bloater in comparison – my home directory currently weighs in at 57gb. Time for a diet?
Related posts:
Hah – I’m aiming for digital anorexia
Most of the time I don’t even wear a watch or carry my mobile – bliss!
… whereas I’m already carrying an iPod with 17.3GB on it. I’m confused though: why is this being described as ‘obese’, as if it’s somehow bad for you? There’s something undeniably human about walking down the street listening to whatever matches your mood. There’s something undeniably good for you about walking down the street listening to something upbeat, like I usually do. In the future, I would expect people to be carrying really significant amounts of data with them everywhere, particularly when things like RDF and the rest of the semantic web really pick up — i.e. when your computers download stuff for you before you know you want it.
Hmmm, walking and listening to music is always a combination I’ve avoided — on the rare occasion I’ve done it it’s been with only one earpiece in at a time. I rely on my hearing to tell me what’s going on around me way too much to want to cut myself off from the outside world.. I’ve been knocked down by a car once in my life, and don’t want to repeat the experience!
I’m currently experimenting to see how far down I can prune my ‘dependencies’.. I’ve made a lot of progress, but I seem to have a way to go still!
It’s good to ‘see’ you around BTW – it’s been a while..