Too Many Downloads: The Maddening Inconvenience of Modern Tech

I spend a third of my life resetting passwords, downloading new apps (while simultaneously deleting old ones and photos to free space), or trying to reach a live customer service agent.

All this modern tech is supposed to make life more convenient, quicker, easier, more user friendly and replete with immediate gratification…right? Bulls**t. It’s just driving me crazy. My life is saturated with tons upon tons of added homework every time I do anything that involves my phone, an online account, or an app, which is basically everything I do these days. I even had to enroll in a new online app just to access the Word doc I am typing this column on. It’s not enough just to click on an icon and open a program anymore; no, I need to be linked to the web and a cloud.

But first off, can we chill with the password hoops I’m perpetually jumping through almost every day? Practically everybody these days is required to be enrolled in countless programs for everything from our home Wi-Fi accounts to health insurance, plus random entertainment things we regrettably sign up for. But few, if any of these accounts will allow us to have simple, low maintenance passwords that don’t need to be changed every so often.

I understand things like bank and credit accounts might want to increase the protection and security. But ironically those accounts are the least cumbersome. For some reason both my cell phone company and my internet provider insist that I change my password every other month. And it can never be anything remotely close to any password I’ve used before, plus there is always the whole – at least eight characters, one upper case, one lower case, and one symbol.

Pretty much every time I log on to pay my phone bill I have to go through the process of resetting the password because I forgot the last one (and yes I write them down, but I always forget where). What is T-Mobile afraid of anyway? A hacker upgrading my data plan? Enough with the obstacle course, I just want to pay my overdue bill.

Then there’s this “hip” new thing where restaurants only have their menu available through the scanny symbol QR thingie you pull up with your phone. And many only take payments on phone apps now too. Now here’s why that really gets me heated. The other day I went to take a walk on Sawtelle Avenue. I leave my phone in the car, which I often do, because it’s a radiation box and I don’t want it next to my diddly and twiddlies all day. Anyway, I walk up to this cool new eatery sans phone and I ask for a menu. They inform me in an extremely annoyed tone that I need my phone to scan the QR code for the menu, then they gesture towards the squibbly pixel squabble on a cardboard. I explain that I left my phone in the car, and ask if they have a physical menu I can look at?

“No” says the bothered-to-have-my-business store manager.

By the way – tangent time – does anyone remember the notion that the customer is always right? That’s long gone. Today it’s more like, “how dare you interrupt my day to inquire about the vague rules and unintuitive process that governs any purchase of my precious product.”

In any case, you would think that they could at least have menu items on the wall for people, like me, who don’t have their phone on them at the moment or other technologically latent individuals. Some people prefer analogue to digital, and some just don’t have the patience for these time-consuming, thumb-key, obstacle courses. And what about people who don’t have space on their phone for yet another app?

It used to be when you walked into a store, you asked for something, handed over a bill or card, maybe signed a receipt and received that something. These days, you first have to wave your phone to make sure you have a good signal, before you begin an ardent, more-involved-than-they-should-be set of multiple steps, downloads, uploads, forms to fill, disclaimers to agree to, CAPTCHA’s to check off (got to make sure I’m not a robot), and all kinds of additional tasks just to put in an order for crab and cheese wontons at a food truck. I just want some wontons, man…

So I ask the store manager if I can I just order whatever the most popular main dish is. She informs me that I can’t order at all without my phone. Everything takes place on the phone, the menu, the order placement, and the payment.

“But I have cash. I have credit cards. I want to give you money for food,” I plead, holding out my wallet.

She stands there on the other side of the counter looking at me like I’m a plebeian peasant from the sixteenth century with a case of leprosy and nothing but seashells to offer in return. She just rolls her eyes, and nods…no.

“What do old people do when they come in here hoping to buy your food?” I had to ask.

“We don’t serve them unless they have their phone, and download the app.”

Okay, fine…I drove by there the other day, and that place went out of business.