For Efficiency And Simplicity In Your Life, You Want To Turn Low Tech
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Why technology needs to get dumber again
We love making life easier by developing ever more productivity tools and efficiency hacks.
And no question that there are always some inventions that should stay with us because they make life easier.
But there are a whole bunch of them that promise quick and easy solutions to manage your life and work — but they make your life less lively and your work more busy.
“We were promised a simpler life, and technology has only complicated our lives.” (Thomas Freeman)
Tech and digital are not always the answer to a better life.
Every device in your hand or in your house is interconnected and communicates with each other. Sounds like an efficient six-lane highway taking you faster to your destination.
But daily life activities can actually turn into a dehumanized, out-of-touch-with-yourself, and annoying experience.
And more and more people, including me, can’t help themselves feeling that we experience alienation from our everyday analog activities and analog devices.
Besides the fact that I enjoy writing on paper in a nice notebook, that method works ten times faster than typing a thought, To-Do, or info into my phone. Autofill regularly tries to take me for a ride with ridiculous, automatically generated words that make no sense whatsoever.
Do I really need to coordinate the garage door, Siri, starting the bathwater, and refrigerator announcement what to shop for — all in one high-tech multifunctional remote control connected to the internet?
How did we get from helping apps to overwhelming apps?
The internet connects all of us in one, giant, interpersonal communications web.
But the idea of networking devices on multifunctional platforms has at some point become only this: annoying.
Too many choices, buttons, options, passwords, connections, comments, posts, lists. On-demand everything.
We become trapped in decision fatigue because of choices-overload and decision-making paralysis.
