function mobile phone ten months ago. It had a camera, a couple of nifty games and an amazing MP3 player inside it. It looked really awesome too, with a sliding function and neon green light shining through from the inside. Once I saw it, I couldn't help myself and splurged on it with my hard-earned savings. Similarly, when the last installment of the Harry Potter series came out last July, I was one of the first people standing in line outside Jarir bookstore the day it was released. I couldn't bear the thought of not being able to read the book as soon as it came out, and didn't even care that I was paying for the hardcover – and so more expensive – version. Likewise, I can't wait for models of the e-book reader (already released in Japan, North America and Europe) to be released here so that I can do full justice to my reading obsession, even though I know I might not be able to afford one. Though oddly eccentric, I'm not a special case. The iPhone hasn't even been released in Saudi Arabia and I have personally seen six different people equipped with it. Some shifty sources have told me I can buy the unlocked (and therefore hacked) version from ordinary electronic goods' stores for a whopping twenty-five hundred riyals and without a reliable warranty. It's the new ‘in' thing to have an iPhone, or still to be released ‘Storm' - Blackberry's version of the iPhone -, or even the HTC Touch Diamond, all of which instantly get you the icon status you desire. It's the same thing for children with portable gaming consoles. You haven't remotely got a normal life if your parents haven't spent close to eight hundred riyals buying you the Sony PSP (Portable Playstation), with subsequent upgrades and installations worth a few hundred more. There's been a great deal on this subject of ‘instant gratification' in the media recently, with Conservatives – particularly neo-Conservatives - from every field engaged in heaping criticism on our technology-savvy age. They even tout it as the prime reason why we're all suffering from the current global economic crisis. Such people argue that it is our desire to be instantly gratified - to acquire what we want as soon as we want it – that has turned us into greedy, materialist consumers rather than the compassionate beings we used to be. These enemies of the iPhone may have a point. We have been trying to buy happiness with money, and it hasn't been working. We have become impatient, intolerant, and often contemptible members of society. My generation of young adults specifically, is becoming a slave to technology and to this cult of instant gratification. We don't just want the latest gadgets on the market, we need them. Our dependence on iPods, snazzy game consoles like the Xbox and the Nintendo Wii is making us live a decadent lifestyle that we have neither earned through years of saving and hard work, nor deserve. All this forms part of a wider obsession with spending on lifestyles. Having the best technology is associated with having the best car, holidays, clothes and homes. Everything, in short, but not what really matters. This surge in mindless spending has unfortunately been associated with a drastic fall in family values. Some parents today are attempting to raise their children by buying them such flashy gadgets rather than teaching them good morals and values. As a child, I rarely got anything just by asking for it or demanding it. Not because I aspired to be the perfect saint-like child, but because I was taught to appreciate things more if I got them after waiting a long time, or by pleasing my parents by my behavior. For that, my parents – and the majority of parents of my generation – put in a lot of effort into raising their children. They read stories to us on morals, taught us how to behave, told us to never demand things but to earn them and also made sure they spent time with us. I am certain there are many parents like that today as well, but our society is becoming increasingly plagued by parents who are doing a visibly dismal job in rearing their children. The aisles of electronic stores have never been frequented as much by under-age users of technology as they are now. Children under the age of ten are lugging home state of the art gaming contraptions and more worryingly, mobile phones, and yet there are more depressed children than ever in our society. The stories I hear from friends with children or those who teach children, are largely indicative of an anxious and emotionally unhealthy new generation. It's not surprising then, that these same children do not know of any other way to achieve contentment and happiness but through materialistic instant gratification. Interestingly, this trend doesn't just pertain to technological products. I have witnessed the release of three Harry Potter books during my time in the United Kingdom, and each time most families would buy a copy of the book for every child (and occasionally each parent!) just because nobody was willing to take turns to read the book! A while ago, I was rather devastated to find a twelve-year-old girl I know buy the same phone as me. It wasn't just the fact that her phone was a birthday gift and that mine had almost cleared out my savings. It also wasn't the fact that I'm more than a decade older than her so I felt a wee bit ridiculous for using a phone liked by children. No, it was because it took her a nanosecond to admire my phone and in the same instance, demand the same model from her parents. I am neither a compulsive preacher, nor a neo-conservative raring to take the world back twenty years. In fact, I cannot imagine a world without all the technological innovation we have experienced over the past few decades. The aforementioned gadgets are neither a waste of time nor money, and they undoubtedly offer fantastic and unprecedented benefits. However, though parents are solely entitled to the upbringing of their children, by pampering them so comprehensively they are creating impatient and insatiable future adults. This generation might never fully appreciate the fact that true happiness isn't found through materialism and never will be. __
