10 reasons I hate my computer

You don’t have to be a Luddite to question why we’re always connected, writes Carnegie Mellon’s TIM HAGGERTY

Now, before you get all riled up, I should explain that I use my computer every day. A lot. And I’ve been doing it since I entered graduate school in 1984. I then became tethered to one device or another: a PC, then an Apple, then a Mac, a laptop, an iPad and finally a smartphone. I’ve had email since 1988 (when it was originally a capitalized E-Mail). I’m not a complete Luddite: I’m on Facebook as well as other forms of (laughingly referred to) social media. I enjoy the ease of looking up information, downloading documents, corresponding with friends and marveling at just how limber some people are capable of being.

But as the digital world has evolved, I’ve realized that a steady percentage of my autonomy has been eaten away, so that the damn glowing box — which initially promised freedom (remember the famous “1984” ads and the self-congratulatory list of geniuses from Apple used as its promotion?) has been replaced by a nagging sense of enslavement.

This could easily become a 10,000-word screed, but I will keep it brief, particularly for the 186 million Americans born since the invention of the web in 1991 with attention deficit disorder. Here are 10: 1) Facts and charts that have

no meaning. As an example, I have absolutely no idea how many people have been born in the United States since 1991 and I have no idea when the internet was invented. I just don’t want to look it up. Like so much of the stuff I read online, these are completely spurious claims that can be made to look legitimate with nifty graphics, justified margins and an eye-catching font. It’s got to be true! (Insert nifty graphic here.) 2) The annoying way that my computer thinks it knows best. No, I do not want to automatically indent my list, nor do I want to spell-check my document right now. But it’s just wasted more of my time, and

another one ready to install? Again? Really? I write in English, thanks, I don’t need a new word-processing program (Version 946.2) that allows me to check my grammar in Portuguese. But just try to skip one new version. Or two. I will outdate myself quickly, I’ll become slower and less and less relevant, my software won’t function and my sleek beautiful hardware will become obsolete in five years. An old car still gets me to the supermarket. Old computers go to the landfill.

4) Constantly feeling like an absolute idiot. This may be worse since I work at a university that is about as tech-friendly as you can get, but I am not really interested in learning yet another software program for the hollow promises of convenience or security. Having documents dumped in a shared box doesn’t seem like much of an improvement over an email attachment, but it means yet another upgrade and yet another program that will exist for about 13 months. I have now utilized about a dozen filesharing programs, and guess what — all the files look exactly the same.

5) Being sold a bill of goods. Oh, there are inexpensive computers out there. But they don’t work as well as a high-end computer, in spite of what the salesperson is claiming. And since I wasn’t weaned at an Apple Store (where all the Geniuses may actually be the same person), I get understandably nervous and spend as much money as I can possibly afford, vainly hoping that it will forestall my inevitable decline.

6) Passwords, passwords, passwords! The bulwarks of cyber freedom must be pretty darn weak if it’s recommended that our passwords look something akin to “4N// jq6i9F!#!” And why wouldn’t some nefarious robohacker get to that just as quickly as they would any other combination of letters? And once I’ve forgotten it, I’ll get locked out anyway because I can’t remember what I changed it to. Go back to Go!

7) The fake comforts of security questions: “What was your mother’s maiden name?” “What was your favorite book as a child?” “Who was your best friend?” Who remembers? Skipper or Bob — who was really my best friend? Do you mean my first real pet, a 5-anddime goldfish that died in a hot station wagon on the way home? His name was Flush. How about asking things that you really remember or actually can’t quite forget: What was my first hallucinogenic drug? What did my maternal grandmother die of? Has that spot on my hand changed color? Has it?

8) The end of friendly

bate. Dinner parties used to be fun, and I’d argue over the order of Henry VIII’s wives or who won the second Super Bowl long into the night over a few glasses of wine. Now there’s some nimrod on his iPhone, looking at a Wiki page that was written by some nimrod on her iPhone but that has really nice graphics, effectively shutting down discourse. Remember when presidents issued platforms instead of tweets? Remember when going viral was something to avoid?

9) Who needs expertise? Andrew Carnegie, the Astors and countless lesser lights used to build beautiful edifices that were filled with books. They were called libraries, and they were filled with librarians who actually knew how to find real facts. And newspapers had editors, who weighed their reporters’ findings and placed stories in some sort of order or sequence. Now I’ve got some pitiful shut-in on my newsfeed who after the Tilt-a-Whirl injury feels compelled to send me the latest dispatches from the far corners of his imagination. Right there, after the story about the successful North Korean missile launch. 10) I miss unencumbered

time. I don’t need to be endlessly wired. I rarely carry my phone — though, with an aging mother, I like having the option. I don’t need to go on Facebook — though it’s nice to keep up with old friends. But at the end of the night, I take my dog for a walk and look at the stars, knowing it is dim light from a distant past, and I am alone and it is quiet, and I wonder what I am supposed to be connected to anyway.