In my effort to streamline and simplify life I often think about technology and the place it plays in our online dependent lifestyle. And I feel we are facing unprecedented challenges as a culture relative to our gadgets and their applications, or “apps” as they are commonly called. Far from being a Luddite, or one who opposes technological progress, I try to maximize its upside while minimizing its downside. But the lines are becoming increasingly blurred.
Since moving here a couple months ago Linda and I have replaced our four-year-old iPhones and our ten-year-old MacBook Air and are in the process of updating all the applications and learning the associated changes with each device. Given they are Apple products, the transition has been relatively painless but there is a learning curve nonetheless. All of which got me thinking about the necessity of maintaining our technological support structure.
I don’t know about you but I get pressured from vendors to download mobile apps in order to save money or simply to do business period. For example, when our car got sideswiped last month, the first thing my insurer instructed me to do was download an app in order to snap photos of the damage and file a claim. A favorite restaurant finally quit pressing us to download its rewards app only after we protested. Our power company actually penalizes people for trying to pay in person, directing payment through an online portal of a third party processor instead.
While I am tech savvy I do not like being coerced into automatically opting for a digital solution to all my business transactions. Just because “there is an app for that” it does not mean we ought to be forced into using one. Apps naturally require continual updates to their software code and once a device approaches its planned obsolescence, the time has come to shop for a new one or be left out in a technological no man’s land. I pity older folks and the less tech inclined among us left trying to cope in the days ahead.
And don’t get me started about biometric identifiers such as retina, fingerprint, and even voice scans. Yes, you read that right. The other day my (former) internet service provider suggested the “safe and secure” option of signing into my account by leaving a recording of my voice by which to identify myself. All of which leaves me with a distinctly dystopian view of where our world is headed, with or without our cooperation. But I for one intend to resist by opting out of such measures as much as practically possible.
As Justin Smith writes in the latest Harper’s magazine cover article titled “Permanent Pandemic,” “Today the best way to keep citizens in line is not by codifying what they must do, but by requiring them to update, refresh, and reset the parameters of the devices through which they are now more effectively ruled than they ever could be under the authority of any timeless and unalterable document such as a constitution.” So, viva la resistance!