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unique codes. Having to navigate your way around
different systems each time, trying to remember where
you kept that one master password, installing an
update, and figuring out how the new site or app works
now. I find myself longing for the old days so often,
when you could just fill in a form with a pen, slide it into
an envelope and mail it. Or the times when you could
call a business and immediately get a person on the
line who would help you instead of first having to wade
through a hundred different option menus—if you can
even find a telephone number that is, because they’re
usually hidden deep in the website. Because ultimately,
I don’t want to chat with a call-center employee
somewhere on the other side of the world. And no, I
don’t want to post my question on Twitter or Facebook.
The frustrating part is we usually don’t have a choice;
we have to play the game. If all the banks decide we
won’t be getting paper statements anymore, if you can
only submit your doctor bills to the insurance company
in digital form, or when the energy companies ask to
submit our meter readings on their sites, then we have
no choice but to comply. We can’t live without these
things. Every time we try to figure out what ’they’ want
from us, we dig up the millionth log-in name and
password and run through all the steps we are
instructed to complete.
“Digital tasks are time-wasters,” says futurist and ICT
expert Richard Lamb. “All that messing around on the
computer is actually not fun at all. Everyone has had
those fights with their laptop or smartphone, but it’s
absolutely pointless—it’s a battle you can’t ever win.
And if it’s not a necessity, you usually just give up. You
surrender to technology until something really serious is
going on. It’s not until the urgency is critical, when it’s
really down to the wire and you simply have to take
action, that you do.” In the meantime, Lamb has also
seen a growing countermovement of people who are
coming up with ways to be less dependent on big
business by setting up their own do-it-yourself mini
societies. “People are setting up communities of
like-minded people for the exchange of services—for
example: I’ll build you a closet if you’ll take care of my
garden. The tiny-house movement and the sharing
economy also fall into this category. It’s all very DIY, but
then on your own terms and not those imposed on you
by big business. A new parallel economy is growing
that is not financially visible.”SCANNER STRUGGLES
The travel agents, meter readers and gas station
attendants may all be added to the list of obsolete
professions such as the milkman and the knife grinder.
How long will it be before cashiers join them? The
grocery store where I always do my shopping was
closed for 24 hours last week to replace around five
cash registers with a whole battery of self-scanning
checkout stations. All but two old-fashioned cash
registers have been removed; how long before these
are gone, too? Sure, the long queues at the registers
are gone, but the casual conversations during checkout
disappear along with the cashiers. Psychologist and
philosopher Linde van Schuppen thinks it’s a shame.
“These are the type of daily interactions that can
contribute to happiness, even if you might not have
been in the mood for a chat with a counter clerk or
tram conductor to start with,” she says. “We are closing
ourselves off more and more with music on our >‘Don ’ t give in to temptation to
immediately tackle the tasks
you are being bombarded with ’