Overlapping Tech
Why do I feel weird about having gadgets share features?
One of the problems that I continue to face is why I get so bothered by having gadgets that share the same features or uses. I have been in a weird minimalism obsession after watching The Minimalists years ago with my wife, and I feel like I am just barely overcoming it.
It isn’t that I think minimalism is bad, but I think the extreme form of it can be limiting, and I found myself constantly stressing out over things that didn’t really matter just for the goal of trying to be a minimalist. Some of those stresses included my need to have the perfect technology setup.
For a long time, I thought I didn’t need gadgets that had overlapping functions. My phone was for communication and occasional leisure, but a tablet or TV was for actual leisure. A tablet could also be used for reading, but not if you had a Kindle. If you had a Kindle, then reading should be the exclusive tool.
If my phone and TV were fine for my leisure time, all my reading was being done on the Kindle, and I had a laptop of some kind for more productive tasks, then the tablet needed to go. It was an overlapping tool that was already covered by other gadgets. The idea of having more than one gadget for the same task just didn’t sit right with me.
