Technology: An Update

Or: Please fuck off asking me for my email address

Jamie Jackson
Jul 25, 2017 · 5 min read

Last week I joined a new gym. I went in with ID and a bank card, I signed up, set up a direct debit, gave all my details to a real person and the deal was done.

Now for some reason they keep emailing me to complete some online signature thing over and over. WHY? The transaction was sufficiently done last week. I know. I was there. But they now have a digital medium through which they can hassle me all they like.

And so I guess this my friends is a handy, indicative example of modern society. Want another?

I bought a work shirt the other day. When I tried to pay, I had to give my email to the cashier. I told him I had already given my email last time I bought a shirt there and the company is still emailing me now. But after a quick look on his little screen, he said they couldn’t find that email on the system so I had to give ANOTHER EMAIL before he was happy to let me leave with a product in exchange for actual money.

When did it get to a point where when you buy something you’re coerced into giving out some form of correspondence? I’m not saying please can I have this shirt and also a FUCKNG LETTER ONCE IN A WHILE, nor is the shop called SHIRTS & EMAILS so what gives them the idea to ask for my contact detail? I want a shirt, not a fucking pen pal mate.

Another recent event for me was doing a week’s training course for work. The last time I went on a course was a good ten years ago, then it was basically turn up, get taught some seriously tedious shit and sit an exam at the end. This time, despite work registering me on the course and paying hundreds of pounds for the displeasure, when I arrived I had to set up an account using my phone to their online portal. WHY? I’m right here, in the classroom after going through your real life portal otherwise known as the FRONT FUCKING DOOR.

Of course this led to predictable fuck ups such as the course was registered under my work email but I couldn’t access that account from my personal phone so I had to set up a new account which ultimately led to a twenty minute conversation with a helpline in India two weeks later when I still hadn’t got my results because the second account didn’t pick up the course pre-requisites that I’d done on my first account.

See, bullshit extra layers that apparently make things easier. But don’t.

Spotify used to work like a dream. Then some bright spark said “let’s make it social” and suddenly the world’s best music streaming service has inboxes and outboxes and FUCK YOU boxes. Which of course will always end up causing issues. Somehow.

When Snapchat came along with amusing filters and timelines, Facebook shit itself and copied it on both its Instagram and Facebook options so now we have a stupidly large amount of options to show people we’re on holiday and how amazing our lives were. WHY? Facebook doesn’t need someone with a dogface filter drinking a Starbucks in a slide deck compendium of compulsive social angst. It worked fine making us anxious before.

Even Medium, the simplest, back to the old school, black and white typing app now has a “series” function so ADHD arseholes can flick through listicles and avoid ever dipping their toe in the warm pool of concentration for more than five seconds.

I’m no Luddite. I embrace new technology. I love recording podcasts on apps on my phone. I love wireless mice and thin laptops and clean user interfaces that make technology a joy. What I can’t stand it taking something perfect and sticking a social element into it or having to log into Facefuck just because I want to buy a chocolate bar.

Technology, like lovely big long words, should enhance our lives. Ostensibly, lovely big long words aren’t there to make you sound clever or to confuse people, they’re there so you can say one word instead of seven. It’s about being succinct.

And that’s what technology should do. It is meant to aid us, not add layers of complexity to simple interactions. To be succulent, not verbose. Look, I just want a shirt mate, let’s not bring my Twitter account into this.

Perhaps we’re at a tipping point. The iPhone used to be a wonderful piece of equipment. The recent upgrade changed the control panel to two scrollable screens meaning when you want to turn the brightness up, you inevitably flip to the play buttons on the next panel. It used to unlock with a feather touch of your finger. Now you need to touch your finger, and then press the start button to unlock.

Sounds petty? Well why the fuck add these extra bits of crap that mean extra clicks or movements with no benefit. Why add an inbox to Spotify, a story mode to Facebook, an email to a shopping transaction or an electronic signature to a gym contract that’s already been singed?

None of these things need refining. They do their primary function just fine thank you very much. Just because we can add bells and whistles to everything doesn’t mean we should. I don’t want to have to log into my car with a Bluetooth connection to listen to the radio on the way home.

To summarise, I’ll use the words of some boffin what is much cleverer than I. You see, someone once said of invention: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” That was a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery if you care, and I for one agree, though with a name like that the man clearly didn’t practice what he preached.

But this is what software engineers and over enthusiastic designers are missing. This is what retailers and gym owners don’t grasp. Simple doesn’t mean basic, it means streamlined. Less is more. It always has been. It’s why Apple won the phone wars. It’s why Amazon won the battle for the high street. It’s why Windows 8 was pure dogshit and always will be. No one wants every option under the sun, they want simplicity.

They want bread you idiots, stop force feeding them cake.

Jamie Jackson

Written by

Between two skies and towards the night.

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