Buy Now, Regret later

Many of us spent hours on our smartphones during the lockdown. The mindless scrolling hungry for new photos, memes, or even adverts. Advertising businesses abuse us to boost their promotions and presence online.

Constantly introducing new gadgets and accessories from mobile cases and earphones to watches that promise to make our lives better in all sorts of colors and sizes.

These promotional ads began flooding my feed after 30 minutes on social media. It seemed to be relevant to smart watches. There was a particular ad popped up, so I knew it would happen. But I actually ended up purchasing ear pods in matte black. It was quite hard to resist. Several days after I bought my new earpods, I was inundated with ads for a smart watch. Yup, the algorithm paired my pods with a watch so I won't miss phone calls, zoom meetings and anything blinking on my mobile phone. Is this something I should be concerned with or is it enough to make me believe I am important?

The more smart watches I went through,I realized they are all basically the same. They are competing only with oneanother's prices, and who has the most effective marketing strategy.

This curiosity was a real temptation, not to mention the unrealistic influencers promoting it as if I was missing something. I watched their demo videos and read these reviews for 10/10 stars. So I had almost given into the temptation of “buying” it."I want one, I need it, I must have it, It's cheap then it wouldn't hurt".

The health monitor feature is alluring, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.I put down my phone and thought it over for a day before deciding. The next morning, I realized I was okay without it. Phew!

The advertisements for some of these products online that promise us efficiency fail to deliver. They are enticing, quite fashionable, offer free shipping, and it was quite hard to refuse, but do they add any value to our lives?

Almost none of these " new gadgets " last with us more than a year .Most of these gadgets are of substandard quality which causes the items to end up in tech trash landfills. Remember the Pixar movie Wall-e?

In our society, we are always looking for the cheapest deal and dumping the product after using it a few times. This practice causes us more- money and damage to the environment in the future.

The good deal that we are clamoring for becomes counterproductive . Frequent or excessive purchasing of tech gadgets and accessories can lead to serious environmental consequences, it is more expensive than what we think . Products that are cheap and low quality are disposable. In a few months you buy again. It is temporary gratification. If you do need one at some point, go for quality products, they will save you money, time and help to reduce tech trash.

That cheap pair of earpods I bought lasted only about two months and I barely used it. I learned to be extremely aware of gadgets and accessories I buy and to ask if it's worth it.