I’m a big fan of 90 second rice. It’s cheap, and you can just put it in the microwave and have pretty alright rice in less than a couple of minutes. Now imagine you can’t make your rice because your microwave needs a software update. Well, that’s just fine. You’ll go grab takeout, right? Well, when you go to get in your car, THAT needs an update as well, and now your house’s faulty facial recognition AI thinks you’re an intruder and has called the police on you.
The concept of “smart tech” has wormed its way into everything, from our security systems and phones to our ovens and dishwashers. There are even juicers that connect to the Wi-Fi and have an app. Now that most physical buttons and switches that reliably click-clacked have been replaced with screens, I’m sitting here, desperately trying to get the touch sensors on my washing machine to respond. The only thing that this accomplishes is making technology more frustrating and less responsive. And we have fallen complacent with these changes.
According to a small poll I ran, most people prefer unreliable touch screens over traditional buttons and switches, and that’s a travesty. The physical button is reliable and consistent. It provides immediate feedback so you know if it was pressed or not, and it can be pressed with anything from a stick to your gloved hands. Touchscreens provide none of these benefits and only serve to complicate not only the user experience but maintenance as well. Now, instead of replacing a single cheap switch or dial on a washing machine, you have to get an entire expensive touchscreen and replace it with a new one, just because it got a crack along the face of it.
That’s not to say there aren’t any benefits to touch screens over buttons, but they are a symptom of the greater problem of smart tech. Older technology, when properly maintained and taken care of, can last for decades. I personally have a polaroid camera from well over 30 years ago that still takes great photos, and I have several testimonies from people with functional appliances from anywhere from ten to fifty years old. Everything from fridges from the 2000s, to clocks and radios from the seventies, to even a few deep freezers described as “ancient”. But many new technologies have built in required software like apps and wifi connectivity, and when that software goes down, the appliance is unusable. The only way to get your stuff to work at that point is if the designers planned for the inevitable shutdown and allowed some form of offline mode, which is unlikely because a lot of modern technology is built to be disposable.
One term that’s been floating around in regards to tech with less longevity is “planned obsolescence,” but what does it really mean? According to the Oxford dictionary, it’s “a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable material.” We fill up landfills with new junky tech, just to buy the newest phone that’ll be dead in another year. And this is by design so you will be forced to continually purchase devices not meant to last, that will be constantly generating profit. It’s a vicious cycle and one that doesn’t show many signs of stopping anytime soon.
As great as the features in the newest devices are, we have to stop and ask ourselves if it’s really worth it. Think about how much faster that 90 second rice is without software updates, and how you really shouldn’t need to upgrade a phone just to replace a battery.
