It
should come as no surprise that I love technology. The staggering advancement
of technology in the past 20 years has altered our everyday lives in
countless ways. For the most part, technology serves its purpose of making
our lives easier. Consumer electronics and access to the Internet are only
becoming more accessible and more powerful over time. Yet with all of these great leaps
forwards, there are bound to be a few steps back.
We
all have our little hang-ups, pet peeves—those things that probably shouldn’t bother us as
much as they do. I’d like to share a few of mine; specifically, my biggest technological pet peeves. Ranging from design flaws to
serious misuse and from slightly annoying to downright infuriating, this list
is a small collection of things that are wrong with technology and the ways we
use it. Perhaps some of these don’t bother most people, and there are some
that you may disagree with entirely, but I’m sure there are at least a few
things on this list that we can all agree need to stop.
1. Really
nasty keyboards, especially on lab computers. Eat your Cheetos somewhere else.
2. Cables
that are ridiculously long or frustratingly short. There’s a happy median, and
it shouldn’t be that hard to find. Headphones are the worst offenders. I need
this cord to reach from my head to my pocket, with maybe a little excess.
Anything much more than that is just going to be a hassle.
3. Walking
around with big fat headphones (most often Beats) around your neck when you
aren’t even listening to anything. Especially if they aren’t even plugged in!
You aren’t impressing anyone.
4. Websites
that automatically play music as soon as the page loads. People who think this
is a good idea typically have terrible taste in music. Pass.
5. Unresponsive
touch screens, especially on products that have no business having a touch
screen. I don’t need my TV remote to
be a touch screen. I just need it to work.
6. Smartphones
that are way too big to fit in a reasonably sized pocket. I know there’s a
growing market for these humongous phone-tablet hybrids—phablets, as they’re called. I just don’t get it.
7. Smart TVs.
If I want to watch something from the Internet on my TV, I’ll just plug in my
laptop.
8. People
being totally obnoxious with the volume of their headphones. I don’t care if
it’s your favorite jam, I don’t want to hear it. Side note: There seems to be a
high correlation between people who do this and people who listen to crappy
music.
9. The
iPad mini.
10. QR codes, those square pixelated blocks that you can scan with your smartphone. Not because the technology is useless or obtrusive—QR codes were
actually a pretty cool idea, but then they got driven into the dust by
marketing teams without a decent sense of how to use them.
11. Recording
a concert on your phone, or, even worse, your iPad. Especially if you
immediately upload the video to Facebook or text it to your friends. You don’t
need to use every event you attend to boost your online profile. Just enjoy the
show. You’re distracting everyone around you.
12. Siri.
Although I can’t seem to remember the last time I saw someone actually use it,
so that’s good.
13. Websites
that want, or even require, me to sign in with Facebook. No thanks.
14. Depictions
of hacking, coding, or playing video games on TV shows or in movies. Clearly
nobody on set has actually done any of these things.
15. Needing
an adapter. Few things are a bigger buzzkill than realizing at the last minute
you need a VGA output. On a related note: trying to use an Apple product with
anything that isn’t another Apple product. Proprietary ports aren’t fun.
Well,
there you have it. I will quietly celebrate the day that each and every thing
on this list stops happening. Like I said, technology is awesome. We just need
to be a little smarter about making and using it.