Feed The Tech Monkeys

In a previous blog, I told readers about my computer-happy friend who was waxing eloquent about all the wonderful things the Internet would provide for humanity. This was in the early 90s. He was talking about how scientific information could be shared between parties, but did not think about all the other ways that technology could be used. I told him, in spite of the fact that these innovations could carry benefits, most surely the World Wide Web would be turned to the most egregious, abusive, destructive criminal activities of the human race.

Putting aside the disinformation and misinformation and propaganda that constantly flows into your device; thinking of how many people are fooled and confused by all of this unnecessary noise; thinking about how this has created the toxic politics of our time and led to the impending end of democracy here and all over the world; putting that aside, consider how many times a day you receive a suspicious text email or phone call. We must be ever vigilant, ever on edge, because one slip of the finger on the wrong place on your device can turn your life into a living hell.

How often are you completely sure whether anything that comes through your devices is trustworthy? How much unsolicited advice, ads, demands for money or demands for rating a service you received do you get each day? How much time do you waste dealing with all this garbage? Sandy and I refer to all of these unnecessary interruptions and infringements on our lives as “monkeys on our backs.” Each time we get rid of one monkey two more jump on. We are minimally active on the web but the norms of the times compel us to use it whether we like it or not. I would venture to say we get at least a half dozen or more suspicious contacts on a daily basis and several times that many simply annoying, repetitious irrelevant contacts that keep flowing into our inboxes.

This morning my wife and I both received three emails purported to be from our home and car insurance company. The same notifications had been sent a few days earlier. They told us we had dividend money coming to us and requested details on how they should digitally forward the funds to us. An additional email from the company reassured us that those emails were legitimate which, of course, made us wonder whether they were. They then added that if we did not select the method of payment within five days, we would receive checks in the mail. As you can guess we decided to not respond, wait the five days, wait for the checks, but they apparently just could not wait for five days and had to keep bugging us. We have been receiving dividends by check from this company for over 50 years. That system worked just fine. Yes, it’s a little inconvenient to run to the bank with the check but we can deposit the check electronically by taking a picture of it on our bank app, so is that really such an inconvenience? Now just think how much simpler it would have been, and how much less anxiety provoking to just receive a freaking check in our mailbox as before. If there was ever a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it “this is it. I can give you many more examples similar to this.

Yesterday alone, we received at least 10 emails from AARP, inviting us to utilize various services for which we have no need. We get them from our credit card company, from our bank, from the supermarket and God knows who else, constantly. We spend many precious minutes unsubscribing from such emails but we are sure that they will continue to flow in.

It seems that half your life is tied up trying to keep up with this overflow of information, misinformation, information redundancy and discriminating between what is legitimate and what is not. Our days are constantly disrupted and interfered with by intrusive, unsolicited information..

To make things worse, every time a device updates, it works a different way, and we have to re-learn how to use the darn thing which has been hard enough to do as it is.

Everything continuously changes, usually for no apparent reason. For example, my wife must file sales tax for the state of Virginia. This must be done online. She finally got competent at using the online filing form when the state decided it needed to be changed. It is now more difficult to fill out the form properly even if you know how to do it. They tell us it is for our convenience, but we really know whose convenience it’s for.

Do you ever wonder why it seems everybody is so frustrated all the time, rushed, hassled and at each other’s throats? I would suggest it’s in no small measured to all those monkeys piling on.

Meanwhile, phones have lain waste to common courtesy and civilized social interaction. How often do you sit at a restaurant table or elsewhere with another couple while they carry on phone conversations with friends and family and Lord knows who else? It is as though somebody walked into the restaurant, sat down at your table, started talking to your friends, ignoring you the whole time, while your friends and they carried on their mostly mundane business. This new “manners,” I’m sure, would make Miss Manners angrier than Godzilla is as he tramples Tokyo.

Even when doing business with a human being on the phone, as we did the other day with Verizon, the technology gets in the way of conducting the business. The lovely woman we spoke with told us at one point during our conversation that she would like nothing better than to toss her computer over the balcony as she searched and searched for ways to help us minimize our suddenly inflated bill. The computer won, and we are still going to be paying more money despite her noble efforts.

You think the idea that a AI is going to take over the human race is far-fetched? Think again.

The monkeys keep piling on more quickly than we can toss them off. It seems our only recourse is to lay in a good supply of bananas while doing our best to cope with a tech- driven world that is well on its way to becoming the planet of the apes.