In his article, Toffler talks about “things” and our fading relationships with them.  I can remember when I got my first cell phone.  Even though it was a flip phone and had no internet connection available (that was the next one), I was in love with it.  I had it on me at all times, I made calls and sent texts I didn’t have to just because I could.  The thing is…I can’t for the life of me remember what phone it was.  7 or 8 years ago I could not put it down, and now I can’t even remember what it looked like.  I cannot imagine that happening with my current phone, but maybe it will.  In a throw-away society we are always ready to move on to the newer and better “things.”  I very much like the mobile I have now, but even my contract is set up so that I can trade it in for the newer version just a year after getting this one.  Banham also speaks about the life of the material objects we own, saying that it is “clearly absurd to demand that objects designed for a short useful life should exhibit qualities signifying eternal validity.”  For some “things” we are starting to see, like the paper dresses and new and improved Barbies that Toffler talks about, this is true.  They are meant to be used and discarded when they are no longer needed.  I don’t think this means, however, that they cannot be designed well.  I may be biased, but I think that apple is very good at continually marketing new beautifully designed products.  They want to put a certain esthetic quality into their work, but they also understand that soon it will be outdated and useless.  I found what Toffler said about the same being true for architecture to be quite alarming, but true.  I learned recently why reclaiming wood and other materials from old buildings is so valuable.  It is now possible to grow trees more quickly, which is good for the amount of lumber that is being produced, but the quality is terrible.  Because the trees grow wider more quickly, the rings are farther apart, meaning that the wood is less dense and therefore less strong.  So, in some ways, we don’t have a choice.  The world is no longer equipped for a culture that lasts.