The internet allows us to do extraordinary things, like translate a physical menu just by scanning it with our phones or identify planes flying overhead and ships on the horizon.
But amid all the conveniences we’ve gained from modern technology, sometimes we just want things to go back to how they used to be. Here ExpressVPN blog writers (and a few other team members) share the tech that’s taken away from their pastimes and experiences IRL.
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Technology that ruined real life
1. E-readers
What they do: Store thousands of books on a lightweight device—no trees required. Read on the go, even in the dark.
Examples: Kindle, Nook, Kobo
Why they ruin everything:
“The tactile satisfaction of flipping through a book is something a Kindle just can’t recreate. There’s a rhythm to it, and when a good book draws you in, there’s no stopping it—even when it’s 2am and you tell yourself: just one last page. With e-books, it’s hard to get a sense of where you’re at with the story. Some of my favorite books are of great sentimental value, too. Their physical form serves as a reminder of a time or a place.” — Tricia
“How are we supposed to know what book that cute stranger is reading on the train??” — Jamie
2. Streaming services
What they do: Let you watch thousands of movies and television shows, old and new, on your personal devices for a low monthly cost or even for free.
Examples: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+
Why they ruin everything:
“My parents used to take me to the movies as a treat and made an entire affair out of getting popcorn and nachos. Streaming services don’t offer that experience and the excitement of it. And sometimes you aren’t even saving money, like when Disney+ charges a fee for a newer release that is about four times the cost of a movie ticket!” — Atika
3. Fitness watches
What they do: Measure and record aspects of your physical state, such as heart rate, calories burned, and steps taken.
Examples: Apple Watch, FitBit
Why they ruin everything:
“Once you start tracking your workouts with fitness apps, if you go out for a run or walk without your device (because it’s charging or whatever), you feel like the exercise didn’t actually count.” — Mac
(Read more: 5 tips to keep your fitness apps secure)
4. Food delivery apps
What they do: Bring restaurant dishes to your home, quickly and for a reasonable delivery fee.
Examples: Grubhub, Doordash, UberEats
Why they ruin everything:
“What you get is food at restaurant prices without the restaurant atmosphere and the anticipation of a fun night out. Just a grim paper bag and so much plastic packaging. The most depressing part is people are so used to deliveries now they’re too lazy to leave home.” — Penny
5. Travel sites
What they do: Show you the highlights of travel destinations and let you comparison shop for hotels.
Examples: TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Google Maps
Why they ruin everything:
“What’s been ruined is vacation wandering. It’s kind of sad that it’s so easy to navigate strange new cities with your phone. And all your hotels and other way stations are searchable and bookable in advance, such that you feel almost negligent if you don’t plan everything ahead. All the spontaneity of travel is gone. While everything is safer and more convenient, so much of the mystery and joy of it is lost.” — Zack
6. Smart birdfeeder
What it does: Notifies you when birds visit the birdfeeder and takes their pictures.
Example: Bird Buddy
Why it ruins everything:
“So much of the joy of birdwatching being still in nature. It’s a quiet meditative joy, which balances with the excitement of hearing and spotting a new bird in person, in its habitat. This tech feels super intrusive. It’s surveillance and also adding technology to “catch ’em all” for an activity (birdwatching) that is delightfully tech free.” — Lauren
7. Dating apps
What they do: Connect you to people without having to set foot inside a bar or make eye contact.
Example: Tinder, Bumble
Why they ruin everything:
“You become a jaded statistic.” — Marcus
“You end up swiping through everyone to find said cute stranger on the train—to no avail.” — Jamie
(Read more: 3 privacy tips for using online dating apps)
What has technology ruined? Rant with us in the comments!
Comments
I agree with almost all except for the e-readers rant. I have a NOOK and a large library of physical books; both are valuable. I would never have known of the existance of hundreds of books that I discovered and purchased by way of my NOOK. The convenience of the e-reader is a plus. I have found that electronic and physical book formats have different advantages so I use whichever is better suited to my needs. Textbooks I want in physical form so I can mark up, annotate, and add notes more easily than possible for the electronic equivalent. For novels the e-book format wins.
Tech has ruined the ability to freely talk about anything with friends or real people without having everything captured, recorded or surveilled in some form. I’m normally a very easy going and outspoken in person, but it has totally changed the way I interact with peers online for the main reason that everything on there is being watched. Whether sensitive or normal conversation, it can all be used to learn more about you. Plain creepy.
Did Facebook,Instagram and twitter ruin socializing,YES.Why bother going out when you can sit at Home in your Underwear and bitch about everything and NOT know shit about anything.
Mobile phones. Oh, not so much the intrusion into our personal space at any time, day or night – which can be infuriating.
Rather, the loss of the pub conversations where people tried to remember the names of actors, you know, “…that guy that was in the film with ‘whatshername’, yeah, you know, the tall blonde with the weird voice?”, or the perennial, “Did you know there is an animal in the Amazon rainforest that [insert outrageous claim]?” and there was no closure, just endless speculation.
Mobile phones and Google have consigned these inane but fun conversations to the waste bin oh history. :p
The rising censorship is my main stress level. I’ve had to move both my domain names and hosting plans. I run a couple of blogs talking about hospital errors and new technology. I would never have through of myself as ‘controversial’. I don’t even discuss alternative therapies! I’m an ex nurse who lets people know about some of the pitfalls in hospitals, and helps them find home/tech solutions.
Suddenly I’m surrounded by people being censored, cancelled and deplatformed. I have seen numerous Doctors kicked off social media platforms, simply for giving their opinion on healthcare, medicines or technology. The latest is the inventor of mRNA technology who has been kicked off both uTube and Linked In!
I’ve moved to new platforms Gab and Odysee.
I don’t know where this is going to end. But every person on the globe has the absolute right to listen to Doctors giving their medical opinions.
https://open.lbry.com/@Coronavirus:4e70c4950832f7d2fe7539ffc16500f246dc5e33
Absolutely nailed it. The level of exclusionary groupthink, Orwellian Big Brother censorship and unlimited privacy invasions by Big Tech are destroying our country and robbing us of our hard-won freedoms. It’s looking more like a totalitarian state each day, which is terrifying.
I suspect they were probably kicked off for suggesting a bunch of bullshit that actual doctors pan. Gab and Odysee are the exclusive realms of idiots that want to be able to spout their nonsense like it is fact without being held accountable for the gullible idiots that fall for it.
If the cost of an UNCENSORED platform is allowing idiots to spout nonsense, it’s a price worth paying. You let any one person or group control what counts as “bullshit,” you’ve entered totalitarianism.
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I am a guy who is not in Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (those are the social media platforms i am aware of). Therefore I am blissfully happy knowing that my data and my habits are not known to Mr Zuckerberg et al although I do have a gmail account but never send sensitive info via that platform. I use Protonmail for serious matters.
Social media platforms —- what does this mean? Why are people so needy and consider it a must to share a picture of their cat, or god forbid their breakfast on-line. I aam fortunate in the fact that I am reasonably worldly and intelligent and in fact in the 80s and 90s had so many girlfriend/ladyfriends that one older lady suggested rather jokingly I should set up my own male escort company as so many of the female persuasion just wish to be charmed and chatted to about all and every subject – of course if you did your job well the reward was a foregone conclusion at the end of a lovely evening.
These days I see people have lost all modes of real communication. Everybody has their face down in the mobiles checking all this bullshit … for what benefit???
My wife, who is a little but younger than me, is in Facebook (and admits its not for me), worries when she only gets 3 likes for a particular meme or photo — How pathetic — I laugh at her and how idiotic this whole social media is!!!
Why does anybody think, talking about Twitter now, that I am interested in their viewpoint or comments on any particular subject? Look at footballers (soccer) or actors/actresses …. they write/say something when they are younger/immature and now with all this leftie woke nonsense of people getting upset because they are offended, push people into serious trouble whereby they may lose their job or, to use the vernacular phrase, ‘they are cancelled’ because they expressed their views perhaps quite some years ago —- I mean who gives a f^^^ !!!
As for e0books this has never worried me as I have such a busy life that I do not have time to read books. I have several on my bedside table but they are gathering dust there as when my full day is over nearing 23.30 at night, I need only sleep.
So for me i use modern technology as i need it, and do not follow like sheep the need to be where ‘everyone’ else is. I absolutely do not care. I use ‘Whats App’ and this is for the simple reason of communication and hardly for social media reasons.
So this is my take on modern technology – I use it as I wish to use it and take great care not to leave a social footprint anywhere, as my business is my business!!!!
Agreed! People who subordinate themselves to the whims of social media “likes” or other artificial values cede to others what should be most highly prized for one’s self: A real life.
Very easy answer for me…. The days of just turning on a television, or better yet, just turning on a complete audio system with one, small twist of a knob. Even the volume was part of that same knob. After all the tech, this simple act is more like Morse Code or the Pony Express, than what we had hoped it to be.
Reading some of the comments and the thoughts of the bloggers, one thing seems certain: technology seems to affect your decision-making.
Automatic bird feeder taking away your joy of bird-watching? Go back to filling it yourself with bird food. Public libraries still exist, just about, and bookshops have not all gone out of business due to the greed of Amazon. There are lots of second-hand bookshops in many cities. Charity shops also sell donated books if you need to smell the paper or savour the physical dimensions of books. Cinemas still exist, especially in China where new multiplexes seem to be part of any large shopping mall development. Who would have thought that vinyl records would have made such a comeback? “Nostalgia is not what it used to be” said Alan Whicker. I don’t feel the need to have a presence on Facebook or Twitter so the pressures of those platforms don’t affect me. I don’t use my mobile phone to pay for things.
Technology (such a broad term) will only ruin things if you allow it to control your existence. Technology is a tool. It makes a lot of things much easier. AI will revolutionise medicine. It’s being used for example to more accurately protect organs in some cancer treatments.
So, when it’s possible to attend big outdoor popular music concerts again, put your phone back in your pocket and soak up the atmosphere. You could even have a dance and truly enjoy the event rather than being obsessive about the chronicle you create for your social media feeds.
Everything these days, take me back to the 60’s PLEASE.
Agree about ebooks. They have no smell. Sorry, I need a hard copy.
Digital music. Sorry, I miss LP’s. They smelled nice too, plus – – LINER NOTES!!!
[ALL YOU KIDS – GET OFF MY LAWN!!!]
Technology in general. All of the failures and glitches can totally mess up your life. For example…you think a payment has been made. A few months later you get late notices or cancellations. Oh my – the site failed on the day your payment was made and away go the dominoes.
Streaming music services are the final nail in the coffin of music. Even after music went digital, I could still find joy in browsing the iTunes Store and discovering new and old albums to buy and own and crafting my own playlists. But now, the instant access to everything means I don’t need to browse, I just search it instead. It means I don’t need to listen to the art of a carefully crafted complete album, I just search for that one song. I can skip around artists and genres from moment to moment, heck I usually don’t even listen to the song all the way through before I’m on to the next one. I don’t need to buy it, collect it, organize it, or enjoy it. I just stream it. Streaming music, like so much of modern technology, has turned us numb and anxious and left us with the attention span of a squirrel.
As the web widens, so too do the eyes of the spider.
Social Media. Twitter has made the world into a bar fight. Your Facebook “friends” are not your real friends and you don’t need to know what they had for dinner. Watching your uncle’s obligatory slides used to be really boring, but now you get to watch other uncles’ doings on Instagram, or waste hours following somebody’s reviews on YouTube. And their masters all try to spy and manipulate what you should believe, as we have recently seen.
Technology has been employed to blanket the free with a “Big Brother” social prison.
The paperless office. So efficient that nothing is filed where it should be, nobody has a full dossier from which you can work, and heaven help you if someone has a slow internet connection or the server goes down. That’s when paper and pencils come back with a bang – playing Jenga and trying out your Origami skills!
I, more than likely, am much older than your ExpressVPN bloggers, and remember when cell phones were not around much in the early 90’s. One did not even think how they were going to “miss” a call. One had friends that were not made through “social media’s”. One tended to use a regular dial phone or a push button phone, which stayed home, and people would leave a message “if” you had an answering machine.
Call waiting, which is a curse in my view, because when talking with someone, you can be continually interrupted because the friend on the other end, has a busy phone life, and seems the “need” to answer right away, and put the other party on hold, makes the other party, who is constantly waiting to finish a conversation is not worthy enough to give their attention to at that moment. They should just let those other callers just “leave a message” and they can get back to them when they are available! It is just plainly rude, it’s as if they will not survive if they do not respond instantaneously!
The other, which I did not see written here, is that due to this “technology” customer service is a NIGHTMARE! One can no longer talk with a “human” but a robotic message to choose the following, with endless “press this number for this service, and so on. It’s treating customers as “if” it’s a privilege to talk with a corporate customer service assistant, when it was at one time the other way around, it was a “privilege” that a customer paid for your service being offered because the service rendered was worth supporting that service!
Another point is now Cell phones allows employees to waste company time, because their “calls” are more important than developing a decent and ethical work ethic! Accidents and death have increased, due to the narcissistic behaviour of uncaring users! It would seem cell phones have become a necessary hypnotic device to justify inhumane and immoral actions!
I have a cell phone, but I have it under MY control! I do not take it with me every where I go, why? Because I will survive without it. People say what about your safety, what if you will need it because of unseen emergencies? Well if I survived without in the first place I will survive without again!
I have found it freeing indeed, I’m not ADDICTED to my phone. It serves me, I do not and will NOT allow it to enslave me!
Thank you for the opportunity to share my well founded hatred for this modern age in which we live!
All the best ExpressVPN, I am, so far, a contented customer to the great service you are offering…..so please do NOT screw it up, because I will leave you in a heart beat, if you do!
Have a great summer!
I gave up my car due to the carelessness of other driver’s, and pedestrians which one had to keep an eye on at all times, which created such stress and anxiety.
Agree almost 100% with what you say, especially with regard to mobiles.
If I am at dinner its turned to silent or in my car and I do not check it even once.
I say almost 100% because I do still drive, and maybe 5000miles/month as I wish to run over cyclists and the odd pedestrian when they act like morons and deserve it !
I sense that I am also within your age bracket too.