At the start of almost every flight, I usually hear this:
“Please turn off all electronic devices.”
In the last few years, I’ve heard this:
“Please turn off your cell phones, iPods, BlackBerries, laptops, and all other electronic devices”
I’d say about five years ago, I also heard “Gameboys” in there. I don’t hear it anymore.
There are a few things I’ve gleaned from this little observation: 1) iPods and BlackBerries are firmly in the cultural lexicon, and this will remain until they fall out of fashion, 2) that few other gadgets have attained such significance, and 3) these cultural markers are indicative of the current state of technology awareness. These named gadgets have also historically been groundbreakers — the Gameboy was THE handheld gaming system, the iPod is THE music player, and the BlackBerry is THE corporate communication tool. I can only think of a few more that have crossed this cultural barrier: Xerox is THE copy machine, and the Tivo is THE digital video recorder. That’s the mark of a truly successful marketing campaign (plus having a quality product helps).
It’ll be interesting to see if any of the gadgets we see at trade shows like CES ever attain that status.
4) that electronic devices like ipods, blackberries, laptops, etc cause planes to fall out of the sky.
nice observations! Although, there’s definitely some lag… I still here “walkman” in there (THE MUSIC player of yesteryear), and at theaters, I still here the word “pager.”
it’s interesting to note that cell phones have never had such a leading brand to come forth and likewise, now that more companies have DVRs, I’ve been hearing that term, the generic, superseding TiVo a lot lately… although comcast is doing it’s best to “brand” cable and they might just succeed… of course then they’ll be too late as cable will be considered rather old and “kinda dumb” as the wireless paradigm completely shifts.
you should write for MegaTrends!