Old man yells at cloud
Back in 1994, my family was fortunate enough to get our first Windows PC. Ostensibly, it was for my mom’s work, but at fourteen years old, I became the primary user in our household. I had used DOS computers before, but Windows 3.1 was a game-changer! When we upgraded a year or so later to Windows ‘95, a whole new world opened up once again.
I didn’t just use it for solitaire (though it is STILL the best version ever made), I used clipart programs to make crappy covers for my crappy band's crappy music. I played with basic photo-editing tools, cursed over trying to make incompatible programs run, and brought home countless demo disks for games like Blake Stone, Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Realms of Arcadia, and found ways to make them run whether the computer wanted to or not. (Fun fact: Apogee’s founder, and I have the same name! I learned that from the Blake Stone credits.)
I spent many hours banging my head against the desk— figuratively and literally— but in the end I learned a lot about how computers work. Things that I still use to this day!
And then came the upgrade to Windows ‘98.
Now in many ways, I’m sure Windows ‘98 was an upgrade. But it was the first time I remember something happening that I detested. Something that still irks me about software development. The first time I put a CD-ROM in the drive, it auto-ran the installation wizard.
I know right? How dare they!
You see, up until then I had gotten used to putting the disk in and running the programs when I darn well felt like it. Now the computer was deciding when I would run it. How presumptuous!
I’m a little ashamed to admit how many hours I spent trying to figure out how to turn that feature off. I don’t remember if I ever managed, but one thing was clear by the time XP rolled around: These quality of life automatic features were here to stay, and more were coming.
Now, I can imagine some well-intended coders at Microsoft trying to make their system more user-friendly. After all, why put a disk in the drive if you don’t want to run it? What else can we make easier for the end-user experience? I do get it. But I still don’t like it.
Quality of life upgrades like this have always irked me. Clearly, I’m in the minority, as making things more automatic over the years has allowed more and more people to access tech without the need to bang their heads against desks. However, to me it always feels like some invisible hand forcing me down a path I don’t want to go. I like to have more control. Or maybe more accurately, I don’t like feeling like something else is controlling me.
There is clearly utility in making things easier for everyone. I love the biometric recognition on my devices, and how easy it is these days to create and publish all kinds of media online. But there is something lost when we make everything too easy. We often hear coders and tech company leaders using the word “frictionless” to describe their goals when creating their products. But friction is not inherently bad. In fact, we need it.
Friction, baby!
Last October, I published a short story on here, called Siloed. It’s generally frowned upon for an artist to explain their intentions to their audience. I’ve heard it compared to dissecting a frog: Sure you understand what’s going on inside, but you kill the frog in the process.
Well, not too many people read Siloed, so let’s murder this frog.
What I wanted to do with this story is present a hypothetical future where technology has made everything as frictionless as possible. The main character doesn’t have to worry about the weather, clothing choices, preparing meals, telling the truth, maintaining relationships with other people, working, or even raising her son. Everything in her life is designed to meet her needs before she even realizes them herself. And the result is an empty existence. The climax of the story comes when the main character almost realizes that her life is meaningless, but it ends on a dark note when she makes the decision to push that intuition aside, and resume her easy life.
Now whether or not I succeeded in telling an entertaining story that got that message across is something for the handful of people who read it to decide for themselves. (🥹) But it is what I was aiming for.
And this message ought to resonate. As frictionless tech has become more and more ubiquitous with our lives, can you truly say we are better off than we used to be? How many people are opting for edibles & Netflix instead of going out and socializing? How many kids are glued to screens instead of playing in the parks? How many people are finding online communities that affirm their own biases rather than participating in the crucible of face-to-face socializing?
How’s all that going for society? Do you think our mental health is improving? Our politics? Our overall well-being?
Too easy?
In The Matrix, Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the robots built the first Matrix as the ideal human world— a kind of heaven. The result was they rejected it. The people the machines were ensnaring found meaning through strife and struggle. While I’m sure there is a happy medium in there somewhere, I think that’s an accurate take.
Earth is often referred to as being in the “Goldilocks Zone” in our solar system. The habitable space where conditions are “just right” for life to evolve. Among other features of the Goldilocks Zone, Earth is situated in a place where we get some catastrophes, but not too many. For example, Jupiter attracts most huge asteroids with its superior gravitational pull, but not all of them. Thankfully for us, or else the dinosaurs would still be here, and mammals would never have gotten their chance.
Obstacles are necessary for evolution. Without challenges we wouldn’t even be here. We don’t want too many challenges— if we all spent our youths banging our heads against desks that’d not be great— but we can’t have everything handed to us either.
I maintain that if you invest a few hours into understanding all the automatic features on your devices, and then turning some of them off, a few things will happen:
You’ll learn more about the technology that takes up so much of your time
You’ll be surprised at how much of your life you’ve allowed to be guided by that invisible hand
You’ll use the technology a little less
You’ll be more frustrated in the short-term, and happier in the long run
It’s often said during a PR crisis, that you have to get ahead of the story. If you don’t craft your own message someone else will do it for you. I think that logic applies to our lives in general. If you don’t take control, someone else will.
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