‘The light bulb conspiracy’ should be watched by industrial
designers and society alike. It informs all viewers of relevant issues that
need to be addressed in today’s society. The central theme of the film is to
express how and why the development of planned obsolescence was created. The
use of the light bulb throughout the film expresses this planned obsolescence
and how it was used by manufactures to gain profit and increase consumer use to
drive an economy. From planned obsolescence the American and most of the
western world’s civilization and way of life was created without it today’s
western world would have been very different.
The idea of planned obsolescence in products, in theory, seems
to work well. Planned obsolescence is when products have a planned life cycle
and fail or break after a certain time. At first products were made to last for
a certain number of years, such as fridges which were made to last up to 25
years. Within society planned obsolescence would seem to work well old products
can be used by the poorer community while the rich go out and purchase the
newer items, but since the development of the idea it has been utilised to make
profit for companies. Now day companies make products that last up to or are
out dated within 6 months. This means more purchase of products in short
periods of time increasing profit rapidly and disposal of the consumer’s old
products.
This excess of products means that there is an increased
amount of waste that needs to be discarded. Most of the product waste from today’s
society is e-waste which can’t be recycled or decompose. Because of planned
obsolescence this e-waste continues to grow and will not stop in the future. Because
of these factors planned obsolescence needs to be combated in the near future
to reduce this waste. As industrial designer we need to be the ones influencing
this change in society. We as designer need to consider the life cycle of
products, we can still live in a consumer driven society but certain actions
must be taken to prevent waste build up and resource depletion. To do this designers need to create more
sustainable products with an end of life use that is not harmful to the
environment, design products to be modular and can be upgraded this will allow
the consumer to have the one product and remove and add components to improve
their product. With these actions we can reduce the waste dumped on our planted
and not deplete our resources making the world a better place to live for
everyone.
