Technological revolution is not delivering the liberation it promised or AIBU?

[Pyew]

Obviously the internet is a great invention yadda yadda but does anyone feel like technology is placing increasing demands on us and delivering increasingly little by way of actual value? It's all such an almighty fucking faff, apps and bots, more work for customers and no customer service, while at work you're expected to navigate three or four systems simultaneously, all constantly pinging at you, with multiple electronic interactions and interruptions replacing what would previously have been at most a couple of five-second conversations. It all feels less like liberation and more like an unwieldy bloated shackle.

When I started my career many moons ago social media didn't exist - now I have to manage five channels bilingually - it feels like a hamster wheel, I hate it.

Yep totally agree OP.

I frequently enter an incorrect username or password, and end up in a stupid loop of being re-sent passwords and verification numbers.

I hate going shopping now (I used to enjoy it, years ago) - even parking is paid for on an app, and then finding the app for the loyalty card etc when making a purchase, it's all so tiresome.

And school-related admin, all done via apps.

But, here I am on the mumsnet app, so.....

So many things are now twice as long winded. I'm not a luddite by a long way, but so many tasks are so complicated. Even paying for things, it's actually easier to pay by physical card than to unlock my phone. Then there's bloody 2 step verification, authenticator apps, face ID that refuses to ID. Emails and messages which arrive at all times of day and night. Phones limiting social interaction. And Ai is another worry.
I was the first generation to learn to code, watched technology develop from a calculator at primary all the way to computers in high school. I loved it, but now I feel it's all too much.

Yes @Arlanymor there was no social media when I started working. No emails either. I remember when we got internet enabled on our computers, my boss refused to switch his on. Said he didn't know how to work it and that was that. He generated so much work that he had two secretaries running around doing all his admin every day and kept on doing the same for at least five years (possibly longer but I left for pastures new). At the time he was seen as a dinosaur afraid of change but actually looking back that guy had entirely the right idea because all the rest of us are all doing our own admin now, with no secretaries, and drowning in the constant sea of shit that our inboxes and channels throw at us. Just imagine if none of us had ever switched on our computers, if we'd refused to figure out spreadsheets or teams fucking chats, if we'd never had a fucking email. How much would we have achieved, if we'd have stuck to our guns like he did?

If I ran the world, I would ban all computers and we would go back to the old ways.

It's all about the expectation isn't it? Back when I used to temp straight after university I worked in an insurance office. I remember opening actual paper letters and processing them... and people totally did not expect a response in anything under a week because, you know, they had to be posted at both ends and processed in the middle. These days, if you don't answer an email within 24 hours, the world implodes for some people. Some technology is great, I love that my car makes a buh-buh-buh-buuuuhhh noise when I reverse, so that I don't overestimate where the wall of my house is! But I think it's channelled us into doing things in ways that aren't necessary very healthy - expectations are shorter, but processes are longer (two factor authentication can get in the bin). I think the notion that technology makes all of our lives easier is a very sweeping statement and certainly not true across the board.

Actually my expectations are much lower now. As a customer/enquirer I no longer expect to have a human response to a query and brace myself for an endless loop of FAQs, bots, requests half answered if at all and after several rounds of this a retreat accompanied by feelings of dissatisfaction, discomfort, confusion and financial loss.

And yes to two factor authentication. I expect all of this to get worse as online communication becomes more riddled with nonsense, cons and grifters - very likely we are going to have to spend the first ten minutes of any interaction proving to the bot we are engaging with that we are not, ourselves, bots.

Yes that's a fair point - when I get asked if I want to speak to someone and it's inevitably a bot, I think: "I'll just leave that screen open for 30 minutes then..."

Yes I always find it rather ironic when a computer asks me to prove that I am human i.e. not a computer. Erm...!

@Pyew totally agree and have made several comments on here about this so I won't repeat myself

At the time I'm posting, you have scored 100% Yanbu !

Yes, the bloody cheek of it! You find the buses, you byte-ridden bastard.

Quite! And you're a bloody computer, don't you dare ask ME to prove I'm not a computer!!!!!

A client who got an Uber to meet me left her phone in the Uber.

She asked to use my computer to log into her account contact Uber.

She couldn’t get into her account due to two-factor security sending her a message to her phone.

She couldn’t login into her email for the same reason.

Couldn’t agree more. I like technology that saves me time and hassle like being able to tap my card at the till rather than type in the pin, being able to make doctors appointments online, and being able to whizz off a customer service email query at any time of day or night and allow the company to sort the issue for me without using my time on the phone or live chat.

But I despise technology that costs me time and increases hassle like chat bots rather than being able to email Customer service, parking apps, having to have accounts and apps to make simple online purchases, a million different systems and logins at work that are increasingly fragile and less robust than they ever used to be, having to logon to an account to see a bill rather than having one sent to me.

you might be interested in this petition; https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/733545

@PinkElephants356 that's a good one thank you so much

@Pinkbowls oh my God, what a nightmare.