Draft+Background+-SP


 * Draft Background **

Society has reached a rate of technological advancement and growth so rapid and consumerism become so embedded in our culture that our current rate of global resource consumption will be impossible to sustain in the long term. Consumer products are used up, become useless, and end up in landfills at an alarming pace. Many types of products should not come into existence unless they can be design to adapt to stay in use. Innovation is directly linked to iteration in product development and the adoption of new innovations in society is quite a complex relation, but more importantly, planned obsolescence can be a tool in a larger system that enables for more innovation in the sense that upgrades can be planned into the current generation of physical products. Standardization of physical interfaces were previously seen as they method of achieving this and cradle to cradle design offers a great starting point but the true solution to incompatibility of future tech and upgrades is the ability to deconstruct and recycle and rebuild through a general product servicing from the ground up. Components still useable and required can be reused with the new. Market pressures and perceived obsolescence work against this and a more sustainable ideology but there is an opportunity for products to be planned not just not to fail but to be intentionally obsolete to encourage new innovation but at the same time, sustainable product improvements. A change in the way businesses view planned obsolescence could work to change the paradigm within the system and lead to a more sustainable consumer society. To carry out and support such a proposal, the effects that perceived and planned obsolescence have on consumers can be better understood through interviews with consumers themselves to identify and compare their views and frustrations with planned obsolescence and consumerism. In addition, interviews to examine the views of qualified experts may be used to explore what the system could be and tie this in with current literature on how planned obsolescence is currently perceived, potentially advantageous and even required for innovations, and necessary to a certain extent with a monetary system and within a global culture of rapid consumerism, embraced by all first world countries but impacting all countries and the environment