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I tend to read an awful lot of articles in the tech journalism and pundit sphere, and there is one thing that has started bugging me a lot in the last 4 months. This refers to both blogs by regular people who write for their own pleasure and those who actually get payed for writing. I'm not sure if there is a true escalation in the amount of articles that contain it, or if I'm just paying attention to it more and more.

What I'm talking about is a mentality that is both harmful and erroneous, bordering on pure incompetence. It's the thought process I would like to label as "I don't like this, therefore it sucks for everyone" or "I don't understand this, therefor it sucks for everyone".

What is gold to one person can be utter rubbish to another, definitely. But labeling something, whatever it might be, as complete and utter waste of time and darn near a crime against humanity just because you can't see what others see it it? That's just wrong.

Granted, I have done the same mistake many times in my life and I'm sure I have written articles containing such obnoxious ideas. As time has passed, I have become more and more aware of the fact that what I like and use is not the perfect fit for everyone else. Not everyone likes or understands how I can keep up with my writings in plain text format, using Notational Velocity and Writeroom. Just like not everyone appreciates Iron Maiden played somewhat loudly while I'm writing, or that I like to enjoy podcasts while I'm doing chores. Just because I can get along with my iPhone 3G in the year 2012 does absolutely not mean any other person can do the same. These are all facts I realize and comprehend on a fairly extensive level, as I would assume that quite a great deal of people do.

Some obvious examples would be people quickly dismissing the iPod as a device, or any Android smartphone only because it is an Android based device. I would wager that there is still a pretty big market for dedicated music playing devices, ranging from the ridiculously small iPod Shuffle all the way up to the iPod Classic, including the iPod Touch. And sure, there is a boat-load of things that could be better in the world of Android, but that does absolutely not mean it should be dismissed as something nobody wants, needs or should have. For some situation and use cases, it's perfect.

Naturally I don't want people to stop saying their opinion about things, as that would be truly horrible, if anything. Looking outside our own little box would be key to delivering great journalistic coverage, and I can see that not everyone is gunning for that. All I'm saying is that this is a mentality I associate with small children before they have developed the ability to think about anything besides themselves, and not something particularly becoming to anyone who is, supposedly, a serious technology journalist. Or any other kind of journalist, for that matter.

We all have our own needs and forcing the square peg that is our individual perception of the world into the round hole that is the perception of nearly any other person on the planet is pretty numpty. In my opinion, of course.

Robert Falck

Robert is a freelance tech journalist from Sweden. You can follow his posts here on Bagel Tech and on his site streakmachine.com or you can follow him on twitter @streakmachine

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Robert Falck

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