Technology has made our lives so much better in some ways and so much worse in other ways. Thanks to technology, we can work from home, keep in touch, make sounder decisions and explore the world. My relationship with technology is kind of like my marriage. I love my husband dearly and I love how technology has improved our daily lives. However, sometimes, I am extremely mad at my husband just like I wish technology would disappear for a few weeks. Kind of like a technology COVID; just so we could get back to basics. Here are 6 examples of “technology gone wrong” to illustrate how misuses of technology can drive us crazy.
GPS. Although it’s great to be able to go everywhere without thinking about where we’re going, the GPS has made us drive blindly without paying attention. Thanks to the GPS, we know where we’re going, but we don’t know how we got there. I found myself using the GPS repeatedly to go to the same place and always feeling lost. One day, I started paying attention, finding landmarks, thinking about directions, and I was able to get to point B on my own! Now, I try to pass on Google Maps as often as I can.
Google Classroom, Schoology (and all the other ones I don’t know about yet). In our old days, we would get home after school and check what we had to do in our paper agenda. We still do that, then we double check Google Classroom assignments, Schoology assignments and also check emails for last minute information from teachers. I also check the parents’ portal. Many times, homework in the paper agenda does not match what Google Classroom says or due dates are different. We spend 15-20 minutes doing that just to get situated.
At that point, kids are lost and my husband and I are screaming at each other. We end up doing homework that wasn’t due the next day after all. We also miss completing some assignments because there were not announced in the paper agenda. I wish we could spend more time doing actual work rather than figuring out what teachers really meant. Too much information in too many different places!
The big screen in my car that replaced my CD player. To be honest, I miss my CD player. I liked not relying on my phone to listen to music in my car. Especially in the boonies with iffy internet. Now, thanks to my flashy covered in fingerprints big screen, I can listen to the radio, answer phone calls and see where I’m going on my big map. But I can’t listen to my CDs anymore. Wish they had made my big screen a bit smaller to still fit my outdated, too heavy, obsolescent cd player… Car technology has gone a little overboard in my opinion and is another great example of how misuses of technology can drive us crazy in our daily lives.
Tablets and QR codes at restaurants. I came to your restaurant for a lonely, cold and asocial moment… To me, the word restaurant is synonym of friends, discussion, and self -indulgence. A tablet on the table is a turn-off, a mood killer. We all spend a lot of time of screens, so let us hear what your specials are tonight! Same scenario with QR codes. Most people wish they could relax and leave their phone in their pocket for an hour, so can we please have a paper menu?
Message conversations (when you are an adult). In my opinion, messages were invented to give specific, short and precise information to someone. Conversations were invented to be pursued in person or by talking to somebody on a phone. Conversations through messages are a drag. They are endless, always interrupted, easily misinterpreted and pointless. Who has time for this? Just call me or stop by if you want to know how I’m doing. I have no desire to play catch up all day on my beloved phone.
Loyalty card applications.
The cashier, “Do you have our application?”
Me, “ No I don’t.”
The cashier, “Do you want to download it?”
Me, “No thank you.”
The cashier, “But if you did, you would get 10% off.”
Me, “I can afford full price thank you.”
My idea of shopping for leisure is to not constantly have my phone in my hand. I probably shop at 20 different stores and I don’t want 20 extra applications in my life. I do not want the ads, emails and texts that would come with them either. Just let me shop, pay, get my paper receipt and go on with my day.
Sometimes I feel like a grandma who is nostalgic of her lost quiet times, of her vacations without notifications, of her textbooks with curved pages and of her road trips to Spain without A/C… Misuses of technology drive me crazy on a daily basis. Technology itself is usually great , but the way we use it is the problem. We want to feed the good side of technology to keep gaining from it and remain sane.
What are your top tech pet peeves?
Thank you for reading!
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