Geek Chic: 30 October 2011

How many gadgets are you wired into? I don't mean kettles and toasters, I mean devices that feed that umbilical cord we've developed to the internet.

Take a look around any given urban area. Most people have at least one cellphone or a computer in close range. A 2011 Nielsen study showed that more Africans have access to cellphones than to clean drinking water.

Meanwhile, the upwardly mobile - early adopters, hipsters - may have several devices. Especially if they frequent coffee shops. Ordinary Joes like me wonder which gadgets and how many we should have to avoid missing elements of the Information Age.

Sometimes it feels like the whole cyberworld could explode, and we will live without any connectivity at all. Oh, wait ... that did happen recently. BlackBerry's internet failure highlighted one thing for me. We can live in the world without being wired in.

Sure we won't be in the know 24/7. I was miffed at not being able to send e-mail from my hand-held device. But I doubt anyone died as a direct result of not having their BlackBerry Internet Service connected for three days. In fact, people seemed to live more.

Someone I know suddenly had a few more minutes in the day, and enjoyed a bubble bath. We read books, real paper ones. Sure I couldn't tweet about the first episode of Come Dine With Me: South Africa, but the conversations happened the next day.

Tech guru Arthur Goldstuck once said that he does a complete switch-off from gadgetry once a week. Yet he remains a tech guru. You and I surely will survive. We may even be able to make that bubble bath a regular occurrence.

COOL TO HAVE:

Meet Lytro (pictured), the world's most technologically advanced point-and-shoot digital camera. It is so clever it lets you focus images after you shoot them. It captures "living images", which remind me of those fictional moving photos in Harry Potter books - but allows manipulation long after shooting. The rectangular aluminium camera with a teeny touchscreen uses only a zoom, on/off button and a shutter button. It goes on sale for about R4000 early next year.

LAST BYTE:

FNB is offering discounts of up to 35% on tablets and cellphones, in line with its e-banking campaign. No interest on an iPad? Sign me up!

• Shanthini is ShantzN on Twitter.