The Christmas catalogues are pouring into my mailbox, the newspaper is fat every morning with sales circulars from the local stores, and once again, electric razor ads are on TV (hint: no male has EVER bought an electric razor--spouses and significant others think this is something men want).
Just a year ago, I bought a progressive scan DVD player for $150, which I thought was a bargain. At that time, many progressive scan (better quality pictures) DVD players were often over $200. This morning, I saw an ad in the paper for a progressive scan player for $29.95.
It is amazing how much things have changed. I was in a small town restaurant two nights ago, eating dinner, and they had a stack of old magazines by the cash register. I picked one out to thumb through while eating. It was from 1998--a scant six years ago. In it, they had a short article explaining that DVD was this new kind of computer disc that could be used to play movies. It was treated as some exotic novelty.
Six years later, in our house, it's way too much trouble to watch a videotape. Remember those? Those old, antique things with moving parts, fuzzy pictures, and NO bonus material, director interviews, outtakes, dubbing in sixteen languages, or any of the other stuff that no one ever looks at but now comes on every DVD.
As an advocate of technology use, I find myself embarrased at the cheap junk being thrust upon us. Kid's toys are wretched excess. It seems that this year, virtually every toy made has about $5 worth of electronics (we're at a point where the cost of the batteries exceeds the cost of the electronics in the gadget).
Regrettably, I'm afraid that too many people think their kids will be technologically illiterate if they don't have electronic "books," electronic "first word" toys, electronic drawing games, and so on. The current crop of electronic "drawing" toys are apalling. The low resolution, the lack of printing ability, the lousy color choices, and the lack of appropriate tactile feedback are just the technological shortcomings of these things. What is much, much worse is the lack of intellectual adventure offered by them.