Video Blog Review C

The Light Bulb Conspiracy

Cosima Dannoritzer’s documentary ‘The light bulb conspiracy’ portrays how planned obsolescence began and its effect on modern society. It is an educational documentary that should be watch by all so that we can make conscious decisions and fight against planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence is the deliberate shortening of a products life span to guarantee consumer demand. The growth of Modern society now relies on the accelerating cycle of production, consumption and throwing away which is the result of planned obsolescence.

Created by sir Humphrey Davy’s the light bulb was a symbol of innovation however it was the first official victim of planned obsolescence as a result of the Phebus Cartel set up in 1924. This set up deliberately limited the life of the single light bulb to 1000 hours by preventing technological development; this increased consumer demand and in turn company profits. The documentary shows the pre-cartel light bulb in the Livermore Firehouse, California is still functioning after a century.

When the US economy crashed and the depression was at its peak in the late 20’s Bernard London put forth the radical idea of making planned obsolescence a legal legislation, although this was ignored and never put into practice. Planned obsolescence however flourished in the 1950s with the birth of the consumer society; explained Brook Stevens;  ‘planned obsolescence the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than necessary...’ society was seduced by new designs and effective marketing techniques. Some companies went against this new concept for example depont created the ideal nylon stockings which had a increased life, however they were forced ‘back to the drawing board’ to make fibres weaker when high profits were not being made. In contrast at this time such countries as Germany did not follow this concept; with their post war lack of resources they saw no use for the production of products with shorter lives.

Planned obsolescence has a high impact on the environment including; the continuous use of materials is having a great impact on our non renewable resource supple, the increasing carbon output that results from continuous manufacturing and  the dumping of non biodegradable wastes. The dumping of wastes has increasingly occurred in 3^rd world countries which is causing devastation to not only the natural environment but causing disease epidemics.

Planned obsolescence is still well and alive in the modern society for example printers are embedded with chips and cause failure and apple ipods have a specific battery which has a shorter life. However people in the past did not have the power to change the rapidly growing concept however with the presence of advanced communication systems in modern society eg internet it is easy for our society to cause change.