Hit Nostalgia, and they are Back!!

Remember these?  

Or may be you don't because even for me, this is a stretch.  I remember the transistors and the boom boxes.  Then I remember the clock radios.  Now, not even that.  Since clock radios are ancient!!  

I have a computer. One gadget does it all. Clock, television, word processor, radio, and a newspaper.  And of course a computer.  We are tired of this multifunctional, all available, all time in business gadget!!

We want a life, and we want simplicity that we can control.  

When a radio is a radio, and a word processor is not a calendar reminding us it is our day to go to the grocery store...

So, when I saw this, I realised how bad we have wanted these back.  And when they do come back, they do not do so in hybrid version, they come back in the 50s and the 60s style, where we just look at them and sigh, and rush to get our friends to come and have a look.......'look..' and there are 'awww' and the 'oohs...''

And then....there is the that old familiar sound of the 'static' which we hardly hear now...'things not going smoothly', us tapping and hitting our favourite gadget so it would work...for a short time both of us are human ---us and the gadget, we give it a personality....it is tangible, not just an app, but uni-function gadget!! We can touch, feel and hit!!

I know for sure, as a media analyst, that this is a fad, but I think this fad will stick, as a fad for a while.  More so I think new and multifunctional gadgets will arrive imitating the simplicity--only in appearance, but being 'smart' in many other ways.

We will choose them for their practicality ....it is the rich, however, who will have these old and single function gadgets. For they are the ones who can afford the money, time and space to buy, enjoy and gather all the clutter.

For us ordinary folks though, their appearance and that famous static will always be something that we will narrate our old stories around....

And from time to time think about bringing these back into our homes, but mostly we will sigh and say, 'yeah, someday when I have a bigger house, more time and space, will I buy that old fashioned radio, that costs much less, is a single function gadget, and allows me simplicity.  When I am rich enough, free enough, cut off from the world enough, I will invest in simplicity!!'