Has technology made everything worse?

I am begging for a more analog life.

It was maybe in an allergist’s waiting room, when I was handed a tablet and instructed to fill out pages and pages of relevant medical history, that I finally snapped. As I sat there, using my index finger to type full sentences, I thought of all the times we as a society were promised that technology would make our lives easier.

Or it was maybe when I had to schedule 15 parent-teacher conferences across three schools using three different apps that I broke. Or it could have been being forced to purchase a new phone when the previous one stopped charging and having to spend untold hours re-downloading apps and trying to remember login information because the data transfer from the old phone was unsuccessful.

I think we had a good 50 to 75 years there when advances in technology made our lives increasingly easier. We could wash clothes and dishes in machines instead of by hand. We could manufacture products at speeds never before thought possible. We could have the news of the world broadcast to our living rooms.

Then we gained the ability to be connected to every single human on Earth through our AOL accounts. Then our phones turned into computers. Then we got apps for every part of our lives, from calendaring to health tracking. Then every job became an app-building job. Then our whole lives went online, and then I was handed a tablet to enter medical information and had to schedule 15 parent-teacher conferences and missed messages from my editors because I forgot to download Slack on my new phone. And I’m wondering if we’ve taken this too far.

The tablet and the conferences and the phone are the straws that broke this camel’s back, but they certainly weren’t the first to be placed on my lower lumbar. In the last five years or so, I’ve found myself looking around and asking, with so many technological advancements, why do things feel harder now?

I tried to buy a Diet Coke at an airport vending machine and was horrified to learn that instead of simply tapping my phone, swiping a credit card or inserting cash, I was required to DOWNLOAD AN APP AND CREATE AN ACCOUNT WITH A USERNAME AND PASSWORD in order to buy and drink a singular can of Diet Coke. In the end, both me and Coca-Cola Co. lost — I did not get a Diet Coke and they did not get my money. It begs the question, does anyone win? Who is benefiting from all this technological fussiness?

It certainly isn’t the television watchers, who now, instead of simply turning on the television and choosing which channel to watch, must DOWNLOAD AN APP AND CREATE AN ACCOUNT WITH A USERNAME AND PASSWORD AND THEN ENTER CREDIT CARD DETAILS USING A REMOTE CONTROL in order to access 1 (one) single network. If you happen to care about shows on other streaming platforms, guess what — you have to DOWNLOAD AN APP and CREATE AN ACCOUNT WITH A USERNAME AND PASSWORD AND THEN ENTER CREDIT CARD DETAILS USING A REMOTE CONTROL. FOR EACH PLATFORM. All together it costs twice, maybe three times as much as a basic cable package used to cost.

And it certainly isn’t the parents benefiting. There’s one app school admins and teachers use to communicate with parents. But there’s a separate app coaches use to communicate with parents. And a separate app the parents of the team use to communicate with each other. There’s a website that barely functions that is required to register students every year, even for the school they are ALREADY ATTENDING, and then a separate app to pay registration fees. All require A USERNAME AND PASSWORD.

And it isn’t anyone out in the world trying to do anything as simple as parking on a city street and learning they need to DOWNLOAD AN APP AND CREATE A USERNAME AND PASSWORD JUST TO PAY THE METER, or anyone trying to buy a fun new outfit and learning that their size is only available in the online store which is, obviously, AN APP THAT REQUIRES A USERNAME AND PASSWORD, or anyone just trying to get food at the drive-thru. Why does Chick-fil-A need to scan the app every time I order? What is that doing?

I don’t think this is anyone’s fault. The medical professionals, the educators, the parents, the city planners and the retailers are all trying their best to keep up with the rapid pace of automation and what feels like the necessary adoption of the latest technology.

But also, it’s all of our faults. Because to paraphrase the incomparable Ian Malcolm in “Jurassic Park,” we were all so busy wondering what technology could do that we forgot to ask what it should do. And now we’re in a place where it is doing way, way too much.

I blame myself more than anyone. Because first they came for the clipboard and paper, and I said nothing. Then they came for the vending machines and I still said nothing. But I will not stand by and watch any more analog experiences be turned into APPS THAT REQUIRE A USERNAME AND PASSWORD.

I don’t have a solution, per se, other than us all tossing our devices in the ocean, and living off the land for the next century, but I’m confident I’m not alone in my desire to return to a simpler time when technology seemed to be helping us at least a little, more than it was making everything a lot worse.