Tech that secretly hates us!

By Catherine Evans Inkspot Publishing

I have a confession to make: I’m a technophobe. But somehow, I’ve accidentally become my mother’s IT support. No matter how rubbish I am at figuring it all out, she’s even worse. Why are gadgets so complicated? Tech is supposed to make our lives easier, but in my experience, it’s quite the opposite, and usually results in fury, frustration and hours of bemused headscratching. Until I give in and bribe a teenager.

Smart fridges, smart houses, wifi systems, voice assistants … they give me a headache. I have a deep suspicion of Siri and Alexa. They’re sinister and I would do anything to avoid interacting with them. I have a deep suspicion of smart anything. I get a monthly call from the electricity board inviting me to upgrade to a smart meter, and I always tell them the same thing: we will be the last house in the country to get a smart meter, and only if it becomes mandatory. Even then, I will try my best to hold out. It’s the hill I’d be prepared to die on.

Another facet of modern life I find disturbing and annoying is how every website I go on wants to know tons of info about me, including my birthday, my Granny’s middle name and what I like for breakfast. Don’t get me started on spam! I get reams and reams of the stuff, despite going through the laborious ‘unsubscribe’ process. I even find it hard to work the TV. Each telly has five remotes, and none of the off buttons work. It takes forever to switch it on. It won’t connect to Wi-Fi, and it requires more updates than Madonna before it’ll deign to be watched. The old TVs would turn on instantly without any faffing about.

I sometimes think I was born in the wrong time. I should have been a hunter gatherer, with nothing more to worry about than where to find my next meal and how to avoid becoming anyone else’s. Saying that, I really miss my old Nokia phone. It really was a game-changer. Even that silly snake game was kind of cool, but it’s been downhill all the way from there.

Other peeves: The ‘Reset’ button on my printer was included on the final design by a sadistic practical joker on April Fool’s Day. It continues to churn out piles of paper that I sent to print accidentally. Yes, all 150 pages. That ‘Close Door’ in the lift is installed simply to give people like me an illusion of control. In reality, the doors do their own thing whether the button is pressed or not. Another random irritation is that whichever way I try it, I always plug in a USB incorrectly on the first attempt. Then when I flip it, it’s still wrong. Flip it back, hey presto it fits. Just … how does that happen?

The Netflix guilt trip: ‘Are You Still Watching?’ Thank you very much but yes! I flaming well am! I do not need to have my couch potato status rubbed into my face. That ‘undo’ button … how come it won’t undo the undoing? Don’t speak to me about autocorrect. It routinely corrects what is already correct and ignores rampant errors. Not to mention changing innocuous words into deeply offensive ones, but only when texting your boss...

My laptop should be my best friend, yet it has a secret sensor for stress: it knows that when I’m at maximum blood pressure levels thanks to some hugely important deadline, that is the moment to install a new update, and THIS PROCESS CANNOT BE BYPASSED.

Why is my smart screen unable to respond when it’s raining, yet it has no problem pocket dialling some poor sod who is usually fast asleep in a different time zone?

Passwords! Ok, I get why we shouldn’t set everything to password123, but whenever I try to be remotely clever or subtle, the password inevitably has to be reset. Every. Single. Time.

Tech is tricky, difficult, quixotic and judgmental. Until I wrote this article, I had only a vague suspicion, but now all this evidence is in front of me in black and white, it’s impossible to ignore. Tech hates us. It doesn’t even secretly hate us: it blatantly hates us! And yet we have become its worshipping slaves. I would happily set fire to every electronic gadget I own … and then I remember what it was like trying to navigate using the sun, the position of the stars, or even worse, a map. That usually provides a useful little reality check. Right. Back to work … or I would be if only I could remember my password.