I’m still grappling with how I should feel about continuing to buy consoles and electronics. Yesterday, I read a report about a mass suicide threat at a Chinese factory that produces Xbox 360s. The 300+ employees, in the end, did not jump off the roof of their Foxconn plant in Wuhan, but they did help draw more attention to their oppressive working conditions.

I don’t imagine that their factory is terribly different from those in Shenzhen that professional monologist Mike Daisey (who’s not a reporter) investigated last year. Listening to a recent This American Life radio show on what he found left me a bit conflicted and reflective.

We want affordable computers, consoles, and other gadgets while corporations want to keep their costs down and profits up. I understand this. I also like to think that I, like many other empathetic working-class Americans, can champion human and labor rights. And here’s where the conflict comes: I, seemingly hypocritically, don’t intend to stop buying electronics.

So should I, and others who are somewhat aware of the human cost of producing these machines we love to use, feel guilty?

Host Ira Glass asks that question in the second act of his radio show, but he doesn’t really answer it conclusively. I, personally, can’t help but feel a strange sense of remorse. The Chinese side of my family is from the Toisan region of the country, near Shenzhen. As I listened to the accounts of young workers there who are my age, and whose hands are no longer usable due to their repetitive assembly jobs, I find it a bit harrowing to think about as I continue my search for an occupation…or as I take a break from filling out applications to play my Xbox 360. But that’s just me drawing parallels.

When it comes to everyone else in the collective First World, I say “Yes, we should feel guilty that our lust for shiny technology helps to create and ‘justify’ horrible factory and environmental conditions in the countries that produce all of our crap.” But now that we’re here, what are our options?

I don’t think that attempting to boycott the companies that have a hand in making almost every electronic device we come into contact with would be terribly effective. I’m also reluctant to start a campaign or join a Facebook group. (Do socially conscious college students still do that as a primary means of activism?) We could make more demands of Apple, HP, Dell, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc. to better regulate their production lines, but they can only do (or choose to do) so much when their factories are on the other side of the planet. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Instead, I’ve come up with a couple of pragmatic recommendations that hopefully can start a trend in local consumption habits:

Raise awareness. After listening to the This American Life story, I passed it on to some of my tech friends who I thought would be receptive, and I had conversations about where our iGadgets come from with my sister and my girlfriend. I believe it can be OK for us to own electronics that someone my age destroyed their hands to make, but we shouldn’t pretend like everything is fine. For critics who want to say I’m a hypocrite, they can shove it, since we’re all collectively guilty. I just think it’s better to know what’s going on instead of getting lost in some kind of fantasy world pretending that robots make our machines. (Though, supposedly, that world might not be too far off.)

Repair broken. Sure, it’s hard to recommend this when at times the cost of repair can outweigh the price and benefit of buying new, but how often do we upgrade out of want versus necessity? That busted cell phone you’re tossing out has to go somewhere. Then afterwards, some factory worker has to assemble a new one to make up for the model you bought to replace it.

Talk to the youth about the stuff we buy. This is a form of raising awareness, but I feel like it's important enough to mention separately. The kids, like my iPod Touch-obsessed little brother and nephews, are the future. I think it’s important that they don’t grow up too caught up in materialism. If they understand what kind of conditions the people who make our electronic goods go through, that should help keep them grounded.

I don’t intend to necessarily come off as all anti-capitalism because I think the technology, computers, and games that we have as a result of it can help society achieve many great things. I just hope that we, as consumers, can put our devices into proper context and not lose sight of the humanity behind them…at least not until robots completely take over the production process. And if Terminator taught us anything, at that point, we’ll have other, much bigger issues to worry about.