Need vs Want

A few months back I received an exciting idea to design a new age phone, which is like a successor to the Apple’s Iphone but better in all regards. The details were crystal clear to me and this phone would be aesthetically pleasing as well as it would be a transparent phone. Fully transparent? Wow! right? But as soon as I was going to start working on the design I asked myself “Is this something humanity needs?” Need being the keyword, not something that humanity wants. I mean does humanity want a better designed and better looking phone? Sure! but does it actually NEED it?

That prompted me to notice that we actually don’t really understand the difference between need and want. Even simple questions can make our confusions very apparent —

Q. Do you need a tech innovation that can feed your stomach as soon as you think about your favorite food?

Now let’s assume somebody says yes to the question that yes they need it. But is it feasible as a collective society. If such a technology is developed, all the restaurants in the world will die. All the social interactions sustained due to grocery shopping, farming, cooking, baking etc. will be thrown out of the window. Everybody is always fed, no more malnourished children in poor countries but at what cost? At the cost of destroying the totality of human existence? Imagine we are wrestling with only one question right now.

In the same way I asked myself the question — Do we actually need a new phone? Is the current tech doing it’s job? I think so, it may even be overdoing the job. Look at the people glued to their screens for watching shorts, reels, movies, documentaries, tweets, statuses etc. We as humans love to find the next big thing but is this race to better and better and better really worth it? Is it time to wait and smell the roses planted by our previous human fellows.

I cannot answer that for everyone but I’ll tell you this — I have paused the idea of designing the phone for now. I know someone else may do it, the big giants are already working on it and they are making progress but what I want to find out is can we make a fantastic living out of what we currently have. I’m not proposing to cancel innovation altogether but to choose our battles consciously.