13 ways tech has made my life worse

Just because we write about it doesn’t mean tech doesn’t bother me as much as you. Technology has improved my life in countless ways, but there are still a ton of things that irk me about it. I could go on all day, but here I’ll just share the main ways that I feel tech has made my life worse.

I’m not going to get all serious about how social media may be corrupting the youth or whether AI might replace us all. It’s just a light look at some of my own tech grievances. You might agree with some of them, you might feel some are completely wrong, and you’ll probably have plenty of your own. That’s what the comments section is for.

At the risk of drawing too much online fire, I’ll kick off with a popular one.

1. No, I don’t need an account

I get why I need an account for certain things. My bank needs to know which money (or debt) is attributable to me, for example. But we don’t need an account for everything. You might want to harvest my data, and we can have a discussion about that, but particularly if I’m buying something online, I don’t need an account with your service. Don’t make it mandatory. I shouldn’t need to create an account to use Wi-Fi in an airport or book a haircut.

And if I don’t need an account, I certainly don’t need to download your buggy app just to get one thing done. My phone is already bloated enough, thank you.

2. I have fewer chance conversations

Phones and other tech definitely make me more anti-social with real-life people in more ways than one. If I’m around strangers in a fleeting social setting, like waiting for a coffee order in a cafe, either I’ll be staring at my phone screen, or they will. Probably both. There’s nothing wrong with preferring not to interact with others, but catching a short and unexpected chat with people seems to be one of life’s pleasures that we’re letting slip. I’m sure we’d have a more neighborly spirit in my building if we exchanged a few pleasantries in the short elevator ride now and then.

It’s not just random conversations with strangers, either. When I called one of my parents in the pre-mobile era, I’d often end up having a little catch-up with the other one first when they answered the landline. Smartphones have made it easier to get hold of the exact person you need, but those extra little chinwags no longer happen by accident.

3. My thoughts take a backseat

This one might just be me, but I came to a realization quite recently. I love podcasts and listen to them whenever I need to fill some time. They make a long drive or doing the dishes more fun, and I can keep up with sports, politics, or true crime in those otherwise mundane moments.

What I never really considered is that it’s those times when you’re in the shower or out on a jog when lots of people have their best ideas. You might come to conclusions about life issues or decide how you’ll get that new business off the ground. Not me, though — I’ve swapped my thoughts for the thoughts of other people. I’ve sacrificed reflection for entertainment, and my brain is neglected. When I remove the earbuds and think about it, it seems like that could be a bad thing.

4. Give me back my jack

Flagship phones getting rid of the headphone jack is just one example of this trend that I’m sure you’ve noticed. We lose a feature we like and are expected not to grumble about it.

The thing is, there will always be an official reason given by the company and then a more devious commercial one that you suspect is really the truth. We’re told that cutting out the headphone jack makes the phone more water and dust-resistant, but hey, you can always buy the brand’s $200 Bluetooth headphones. And don’t worry if space has been saved by not including a microSD slot; just upgrade to the more expensive model if you want more storage space.

This phenomenon isn’t confined to smartphones, but it’s certainly very apparent in the industry. The thing I liked most about my Samsung Galaxy S5 back in the day was that you could slide off the back and replace the battery. I had several spare batteries, and going from no juice back to 100% in 30 seconds was amazing. That feature got canned in the next generation, and I couldn’t understand why tech was making my life worse.

5. Gaming should be a solitary pursuit

This might be another one I get a bit of heat for, but I’ve always thought of gaming as an offline pursuit I do by myself. Of course, it’s a personal thing to everyone, but it bothers me that the gaming industry seems to have an obsession with purely online titles these days. There are still plenty of single-player games, but far fewer than there were a decade ago, and they seem to be getting rarer.

By all means, include an online element to your game if that’s what the fans want. Just give me the option of working away at it alone in peace.

6. I’m insecure about security

I’m always worried that I’m going to be hacked, phished, or digitally duped in some way. And that’s compounded by the fact that if you’re not seen to show the vigilance of a cybersecurity engineer, the finger of blame might be partly pointed at you. It wasn’t always this way. If you keep your money at the bank and it gets stolen, it used to be the bank’s fault. Now, if it gets cyber-swiped, it’s my fault.

Like many of the things on this list of ways that tech has made life worse, this is obviously a trade-off. I like the benefits of digital banking, mobile connectivity, and so on. I’m not saying I shouldn’t need to keep an eye on 40 different passwords and constantly rotate them for safety, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

You also have to monitor every service to which you provide your data or financial information. You never know what’s getting hacked this week, which one will collapse next month, or which megalomaniacal billionaire will take over and ruin it.

By the way, you could say a lot of the same things about online privacy — there’s a big overlap. But this doesn’t keep me up at night in the same way. I don’t want my details to be out there, but as long as they’re not being used to con or defraud me in some way, I only have so much worry I can dedicate to it without starting to mentally unravel. If it’s a bigger concern for you in your tech life, I can’t blame you.

7. Apps want too much access

Apps really seem to push their luck when it comes to asking for permissions. For example, it seems like most of them are terribly interested in knowing my location, even if they have little to nothing to do with anything geographic. I rarely care if they know where I am, but I reserve the right to be irked by the suggestion that they need to know anyway.

No, flashlight app, you can’t access my contacts. You can illuminate the floor ahead of me. Anything else is beyond your brief.

8. My focus is waning

You’re about to get some important work done, and suddenly, you realize you still haven’t responded to a WhatsApp message from your parents. As you do, you get a newsflash notification that your team has just scored. Oh, and you’re late to practice your language lesson for the day. What’s this email about my Amazon order? What crazy thing has Elon just said on X? Is that important? Is any of this important? What was I doing again?

Every app is competing for my attention, every service strains to keep me engaged once I use it, and there are more of them than ever. Each notification feels like no big deal on its own, as you can quickly swipe it away, but they can build up and make it very tough to focus. It can keep me up a little bit later in the evening, affecting my sleep patterns. Overall, I can subtly start to feel a bit digitally overwhelmed without fully realizing it.

9. Stick your subscription model

There are few more obvious examples of a naked cash grab from big companies than moving to a subscription model for more and more products. It’s bad enough when it’s software, but it’s increasingly attaching to physical products, too. What was once a straightforward transaction has turned into an ongoing financial commitment.

Stop it. Just tell me how much you want for your product, and I’ll decide if I want to buy it. But if I pay you the price you’re asking, it’s mine forever.

10. I don’t want a digital copy

I went to a shop recently, and while I was paying, I was asked, “Can I take an email address for the receipt?” My instinctual reaction was to say, “No, you can’t. I’m buying a raincoat, not subscribing to a newsletter.” But I didn’t. Partly because I thought I might need the receipt but mainly because I’m terrified of ever coming across as tricky to someone who’s just doing their job. I got my receipt and then a regular stream of marketing emails thereafter.

This is an increasing and annoying tech trend in life that can involve both email and telephone number requests. As an environmentally conscious person, I could get behind it if it was presented as a way of saving paper by not printing receipts. However, the only minor bit of credit I can give the retailers in this scenario is that they rarely attempt to pretend this is the main goal. Both you and the cashier know that you’re being added to the mailing list.

11. I miss menus

This is another niche tech life complaint and another that might be just me, but I don’t like the fact that I have to scan a QR code in a cafe or restaurant instead of being handed a menu. After my gripe about digital receipts, you might think that I hate the rainforest. I know the QR code approach also saves on paper, and it lets the establishment update the menu much more easily, so I can’t blame them for wanting to adopt this measure.

Still, it feels like a part of the restaurant experience is being lost. Being handed a well-designed menu is an integral part of the excitement that comes with dining out at a time when it’s increasingly expensive to do so. It isn’t always smooth sailing in a practical sense, either. You might be getting a sketchy cell reception in the building, meaning you then have to ask for the Wi-Fi password. Some places don’t even link you to an online menu, requiring you to download a hefty PDF instead. And don’t get me started on “our menu is on our Instagram profile.”

12. Basic skills are leaving my body

Despite all this whining, I generally like the way that tech makes my life more convenient. However, for every task that I give to my phone instead of doing myself, I start to lose a skill, however minor. I’m then quickly dependent on my device. It could be the ability to work out my surroundings now that Google Maps directs me everywhere or my typing skills suffering. I used to be a more accurate typist, but you can now bash a few keys vaguely around the word you want to write to get an auto-corrected result.

I’ll be rendered next to useless if some apocalyptic event takes out my electronics. It’s little comfort to know that I wouldn’t be the only one.

13. Customer service sucks

This might be the longest-running and most common tech bugbear of the lot. Way before the dawn of AI and online chatbots, companies were replacing customer service representatives with automated menus and recorded instructions. Books could be written on how maddening these systems and their more sophisticated successors can be — millions of reviews and blogs certainly have been.

I’m not denying the genuine use case for a degree of automation. It can assist in making sure your query is directed to the right place. If 80% of your clients are ringing up with the same easily answerable question, a recorded message can be a good resolution.

But we know that this is often not how the systems get deployed. It can regularly seem like companies want to avoid talking to their customers altogether or, at the least, don’t want to pay the wages of human agents. You could argue this is understandable for a burgeoning company with razor-thin margins, but it’s inexcusable for a multinational that is cutting all expenses to please the shareholders.

I could go on about how the closure of ticket offices at rail stations or the insanity of online ticket queues are ways that tech has made life worse, but you get the point and can add in the expletives yourself. Suffice it to say, if you’re planning on joining the Ticketmaster rush on Saturday to pick up Oasis seats for the tour next summer, good luck with that.