Obsessed with Thinner/Smaller Tech?

A fat box shape > flatter > flatter > smart TV with screens less than an inch thicker than paper.

A computer that could take up an entire room > a PC + monitor > laptop.

Then, we have mobile phones that are basically mini computers, capable of completing all the functions plus more, and able to fit in our pockets. In addition, watches that can complete many of the mobile phone’s functions, but not all…yet.

Just think of the Doctor Who episode (in Series 12), where her companions and herself find themselves in Rosa Parks’ time & pretend to be there to pitch a ‘telephone’ that could be used for the basic functionality of producing outgoing and incoming calls, with added perks of playing games, sending messages, etc…, in other words a mobile phone, leaving the officer staring at them cynically. And really, it makes me wonder, what, as humans, is our obsession with creating smaller devices with just as many/more uses? — not to make it seem negative, however.

One obvious reason would be portability. I think anyone would find it much easier to carry around a laptop than a PC (monitor & computer), or a mobile phone than an telephone. These days, it’s all about being able to easily access things from anywhere, from software to hardware. And say, in not too many years ahead, smart watches are competing with phones, then glasses (e.g. Google Glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass)

) begin to compete with watches, there’ll be no need for carrying things around because they’ll just become a part of you. That could certainly be the aim here: to make all tech easily accessible, while you hardly remember it’s there until you use it.

In terms of quality, we could look at the evolution of television and realise that although screens have become thinner & flatter (therefore allowing less hardware/thinner hardware inside), the graphics, etc… seem to have improved. So, when looking at the positivity or negativity of these changes, we could safely determine that they’re on the bright side. Not only do we see this with TVs, but phones, PCs/Laptops. Not only are they becoming thinner, but larger when we look width by length/ screen size: TVs were box-shaped, phones much thicker, as were PCs.

Even consoles are downgrading sizes: whilst the PS1 is as thick — maybe even thicker — than computers (not monitor), PS4s, going onto PS5s are very much skinny. Consoles are even becoming becoming non-existent, as we see with cloud-based Google Stadia (https://stadia.google.com/) . Who’s to say it can’t happen with other tech?

As human inventors, generally speaking, smaller tech with better quality surely seems to be on the rise, travelling through time. How will that affect our devices in years to come?