Once upon a time in America [which was a good movie, by the way, but unrelated here] folks had to go outside to the well or hand pump to fetch in a bucket of water for use in the house. This naturally, lead to a very conservative (in the real meaning of the word, not its modern, political meaning) use of water.
Then inside plumbing was invented. At first that was still a hand pump, but you saved on the walk outside. Way more convenient, right?
Well, you still have to pump it. So, next was invented was the Water Tower, which puts pressure behind the water and allows it to simply “come out of the faucet” when you turn it on. Woah! Dude!! Now I can use all the water I want! Up to the limits of what’s in the water tower, which gets filled in various ways, so I can’t quite use all the water I want.
Now comes City Water, with much vaster reserves behind it and now I have no worries at all at all about using water. Except I have to pay a monthly bill for it.
Small incremental steps in convenience took America from a very tiny water usage per person per day to approx 100 gallons per person per day today and now American sits in the middle of an incredible water shortage. Though you may not have heard about it on the news… they have juicier fish to fry, apparently.
But water isn’t what I’m talking about here. This is an example of how “convenience” led to a gradual diminishing of appreciation for what one has. The continuing ease of bringing water in when you want it has made water seem trivial. Though it was once free and now you have to pay for it. Leave it running while you shave, take a longer shower just because you can. “It’s my water; I paid for it.” Ok, as far as it goes.
The continuing development of convenience in many other things has similarly diminished the value of those. “Fast Food” (which is pretty much a contradiction in terms, by the way) has not only crashed health in America (with other contributing causes, to be sure) but has also ruined the average person’s ability to get around in his own kitchen. Which was pointed out quite clearly by the recent “lock down.”
I heard a news report about 4 years ago about how a lot of 20-somethings now think putting together a bowl of cereal in the morning is too much work. You have to get a bowl out, get the box, pour some in, get the milk, pour some in, put it all away, gah! Even have to wash the bowl, Holy Heck: too much work!!
Huh?
“Convenience” did that. And Cereal isn’t even good food for the most part. Sugar, empty carbs, indifferently tested chemicals, pitiful dose of fiber, artificial colors… Imagine those same folks who think a bowl of cereal is too much work trying to make a real breakfast, heavy in proteins and fiber? The mind trembles (with laughter).
Another example is the hand held calculator. I used to be able to add columns of 3 and 4 digit numbers just by looking at them (not quite that simple, but certainly very fast). Then the hand-held calculator came out and not only did I lose some of that ability, but I have watched people fall over the years to the level where now they can’t make change from a $5 bill without the machine telling them what the change should be. Really? That’s an incredibly simple process; it’s called counting. But we let the machine do it for us, instead. Actually, it’s usually faster to just count out the change, than to wait first for the machine to take that extra step. I’ve run retail operations more than once — and I usually end up turning off that “feature” on the cash register, because it takes too long! That is, when the cash register allows me to turn that off. If you stop using your brain/mind in a particular way, you eventually forget how to use your brain/mind that way and then you can’t use it that way and then… it’s called atrophy and it applies to the brain as well as to muscles you no longer use. Bodies are like that. Go figure…
In medicine (Big Pharma, that is) they keep striving for a Single Pill you can take instead of 4 pills a day. The problem with that is the Immensely Heavy Wear and Tear that gives your kidneys and liver. Is that kind of convenience worth dying over? Maybe it is, to you. Not to me; I intend to live centuries yet… 🙂
One more example: “labor saving appliances” in the kitchen (you may not know that term — it was the buzz-word for all the new-fangled appliances for a kitchen during the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Then some how they managed to make these luxuries requirements instead. Labor Saving gadgets … you know what they have really done? They have increased the amount of time the average housewife or househusband spends in the kitchen now, over what it used to take before all that “convenience” showed up. At least, among those who actually prepare meals for themselves or their family. (Obviously, if you never cook at home, then you have succumbed to a different kind of convenience.) You can verify that; look it up!
I now treat “convenience” as a red flag. Especially as a buzz word in advertising and as a design goal in software. Anything that is supposed to make things “more convenient” for me, almost never does. What it actually tends to do (especially in software) is to remove me one more step from what I’m actually doing. This “convenience” restricts my options, by giving me the one option most people want in a given situation. For myself, that’s only sometimes what I want to do, and so I have to use at least one more click / tap to get to what was once just right in front of me already. How’s that convenient?
False Convenience. Yet somehow False Convenience (also known as “new features” much of the time) keeps stock values rising, even while making the software increasingly inconvenient.
Beware Convenience. How much do you not know or not know any more, because it was “convenienced” out of you? That’s a mighty heavy price for a little so-called convenience.