Mechanically Retrieved Gadgets!

As a guy who is well into his 30's and very much interested in new gadgets (both software and hardware) I can't help feeling there is something wrong. I'll try to give some examples:

• Apple released the iPad in April 2010, and sold 3 million of the devices in 80 days [1]. Less than one year later and Apple is going to announce iPad 2! [2]
  
• How long can you keep hold of your TV? You bought the flat screen and  the HD-ready is already on sell, you got the HD-ready and the Full-HD is on sell, you got the Full-HD and along comes the 3D TV, and I gurentee you that once you buy your shiny 3D TV, a hologram TV will be on sell.
• And don't even let me  start on cell phones. The average life expectancy of a cell phone is 18 months, most people are 'forced' to change there cell phone way before that because of the new technology added to the new phones.
• Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Flickr, Orkut just to name few social networks [3]. In my time, we had a handful of newspapers and  magazines, now it seems there is a newspaper for every last person  on the plant!.

 Don't get me wrong, I'm all with new technology, if anything, I love it, my wife is getting crazy of me talking about new gadgets all the time (though the hand-me down is making her happy) . But I think that these "plastic surgery operated" and "mechanically retrieved" gadgets are forcing us into buying things we don't really need, not yet anyway. Gadgets used to be produced to last, now it seems that they are being produced to be replaced faster than you can say ASAP!