We drive faster and faster into the future, trying to steer using only the rearview mirror.” This phrase from the communicator Marshall McLuhan explains many of the mistakes we make when we come up with new things. What the great communication theorist meant is that we tend to let the baggage of the past condition us in how we think about the future. From his point of view, the best way to move forward is to break with what binds us to past times. This is happening, in some aspects of technology, to the European Union.
The European Parliament has just approved a regulation that urges “to design the portable batteries of devices in such a way that the consumers themselves can easily remove and replace them”. This legislation is based on the memory of the past, twenty years ago, when you could lift the plastic cover of a mobile phone and change the battery. The Nokia 3310, for example, was practically indestructible and its autonomy seemed inexhaustible, but it did not have even the slightest part of the technologies of today’s smartphones.
Personally, I don’t need to be able to replace the battery if the battery falls apart in a few years, because today’s phones have a lot more than just a plastic cover, like water resistance sealing or the system wireless charging that many of which have. What European legislation should guarantee is that, if the battery loses its effectiveness after a certain number of years – say five – the manufacturer must replace it free of charge.
I understand that some people are nostalgic for a time when everything was easier, like buying a battery at the corner store and putting it in your phone in seconds. Try using one of those mobiles without data or apps today. When you want to take a photo, send a watsap or consult a map – among many other things – you will realize that going back is an exercise that means losing things.
It is true that with old mobile phones we did not suffer from some of the problems that have been created by the misuse that we give to smartphones today, but this is not the fault of the devices. We are the ones who complicate our lives. I miss my old ZX Spectrum computer (1982) too, with its annoying rubber keys and loading software via cassette, but if I’m honest, my favorite computer is the modern one I use today: very fast , with multimedia capabilities and connected to the internet.
Europe is a beacon for the whole world. Despite all the problems besetting their democracies, freedom and rights continue to be much more protected than elsewhere, even though we sometimes drive looking through the mirror. Looking to the past to design the future doesn’t seem like a good idea.
